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THE 

APPLICATION  td  V 


OS 


'i  r^ 


CHRISTIANITY 


TO    THE 


COMMERCIAL  AND  ORDINARY 

AFFAIRS  OF  LIFE, 

IN  A  SERIES  OF  DISCOURSES. 
BY  THOMAS  CHALMERS,  D.  D. 

MINISTER   OF   ST.    JOHN'S   CHURCH,    GLASGOVf. 
THIRD  AMERICAN  EDITION. 


OLIVER  D.  COOKE, 

HARTFORD. 

1821. 

P.    B.    GOODSELL,    PRINTER. 


PREFACE. 

This  volume  can  be  regarded  in  no  other  li^t,  than  as 
the  fragment  of  a  subject  far  too  extensive  to  be  overtaken 
within  a  compass  so  narrow.  There  has  only  a  partial 
survey  been  taken  of  the  morality  of  the  actions  that  are 
current  among  people  engaged  in  merchandise  :  and  with 
regard  to  the  morality  of  the  affections  which  stir  in  their 
hearts,  and  give  a  feverish  and  diseased  activity  to  the  pur- 
suits of  worldly  ambition,  this  has  scarcely  been  touched 
upon,  save  in  a  very  general  way  in  the  concluding  Dis- 
course. 

And  yet,  in  the  estimation  of  every  cultivated  Christian, 
this  second  branch  of  the  subject  should  be  by  far  the  most 
interesting, — as  it  relates  to  that  spiritual  discipline  by 
which  the  love  of  the  world  is  overcome  ;  and  by  which 
all  that  oppressive  anxiety  is  kept  in  check,  which  the  re- 
verses and  uncertainties  of  business  are  so  apt  to  inject  in- 
to the  bosom  ;  and  by  which  the  appetite  that  urges  him  who 
hasteth  to  be  rich  is  efiectually  restrained — so  as  to  make 
it  possible  for  a  man  to  give  his  hand  to  the  duties  of  his 
secular  occupation,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  maintain  that 
sacredness  of  heart  which  becomes  every  fleeting  traveller 
through  a  scene,  all  whose  pleasures  and  whose  prospects 
are  so  soon  to  pass  away. 

Should  this  part  of  the  subject  be  resumed  at  some  fu- 
ture opportunity,  there  are  two  questions  of  casuistry  con- 
nected with  it,  which  will  demand  no  small  degree  of  con- 
sid^^ration.  The  first  relates  to  the  degree  in  which  an  af- 
fection for  present  things,  and  present  interests  ought  to  be 
indulged.  And  the  second  is,  whether,  on  the  supposition 
that  a  desire  of  the  good  things  of  the  present  life  were  re- 
duced down  to  the  standard  of  the  gospel,  there  would  re- 
main a  sufficient  impulse  in  the  world  for  upholding  its 
commerce,  at  the  rate  which  would  secure  the  greatest 
amount  of  comfort  and  subsistence  to  its  families. 

Without  offering  any  demonstration  at  present,  upon 


iv.  PREFACE. 

this  matter,  we  simply  state  it  as  our  opinion,  that,  though 
the  whole  business  of  the  world  were  in  the  hands  of  men 
thoroughly  Christianized,  and  who,  rating  wealth  according 
to  its  real  dimensions  on  the  high  scale  of  eternity,  were 
chastened  out  of  all  their  idolatrous  regards  to  it — yet  would 
trade,  in  these  circumstances,  be  carried  to  the  extreme 
limit  of  its  being  either  really  productive  or  desirable.  An 
affection  for  riches,  beyond  what  Christianity  prescribes,  is 
not  essential  to  any  extension  of  commerce  that  is  at  all 
valuable  or  legitimate  ;  and,  in  opposition  to  the  maxim, 
that  the  spirit  of  enterprize  is  the  soul  of  commercial  pros- 
perity, do  we  held,  that  it  is  the  excess  of  this  spirit  beyond 
the  moderation  of  the  New  Testament,  which,  pressing  on 
the  natural  boundaries  of  trade,  is  sure,  at  length,  to  visit 
every  country,  where  it  operates  with  the  recoil  of  all  those 
calamities,  which,  in  the  shape  of  beggared  capitalists,  and 
unemployed  operatives,  and  dreary  intervals  of  bankruptcy 
and  alarm,  are  observed  to  follow  a  season  of  overdone 
speculation. 


CONTENTS. 


DISCOURSE  I. 

ON  THE  MERCANTILE  VIRTUES  WHICH  MAY  EXIST 
WITHOUT  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 

*'  Finally,  brethren,  whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatsoever 
things  are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things 
are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are 
of  good  report;  if  there  be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  be  any 
praise,  think  on  these  things." — Phill.  iv.  8.  page  7 

DISCOURSE  11. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  AIDING  AND 
AUGMENTING  THE  MERCANTILE  VIRTUES. 

"  For  he  that  in  these  things  serveth  Christ  is  acceptable  to  God, 
and  approved  of  men." — Rom.  xiv.  18.  -  29 

DISCOURSE  III. 

THE  POWER  OF  SELFISHNESS  IN  PROMOTING  THE 
HONESTIES  OF  xMERCANTILE  INTERCOURSE. 

"  And  if  you  do  good  to  them  which  do  good  to  you,  what  thank 
have  ye  ?  for  sinners  also  do  even  the  same. "-Luke  vi.  33.    52 

DISCOURSE  IV. 

THE  GUILT  OF  DISHONESTY    NOT   TO  BE  ESTIMA- 
TED BY  THE  GAIN  OF  I  P. 

**  He  that  is  faithful  in  that  which  is  least,  is  faithful  also  in  much  ; 
aiifl  111-  that  is  unjust  in  the  least,  is  unjust  also  in  much." — 
LuKiisvi.  JO,  -  -  -  *  $0 

I  * 


vi.  CONTENTS. 

DISCOURSE  V. 

ON  THE   GREAT  CHRISTIAN   LAW    OF    RECIPROCI- 
TY BETWEEN  MAN  AND  MAN. 

*'  Therefore  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do 
to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them  :  for  this  is  the  law  and  the 
prophets." — Matt.  vii.  12.  -  -  -  111 

DISCOURSE  VI. 

ON  THE  DISSIPATION  OF  LARGE  CITIES. 

**Let  no  man  deceive  jou  with  vain  words  ;  for  because  of  these 
things  Cometh  the  wrath  of  God  upon  the  children  of  disobedi- 
CDce.'* — Epwes.  v.  6.  -  -  -  135 

DISCOURSE  VII. 

ON  THE   VITIATING   INFLUENCE  OF  THE   HIGHER 
UPON  THE  LOWER  ORDERS  OF  SOCIETY. 

'*  Then  said  he  unto  the  disciples,  It  is  impossible  but  that  offen- 
ces will  come  :  but  wo  unto  him  through  whom  they  come  I  It 
were  better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about  his  neck, 
and  he  cast  into  the  sea,  than  that  he  sh-^uld  offend  one  of  these 
little  ones." — Luke  xvii.  1,2.  -  -  -        163 

DISCOURSE  VIII. 

ON  THE  LOVE  OF  MONEY. 

"If  I  have  made  gold  my  hope,  or  have  said  to  the  fine  gold, 
Thou  art  my  confidence  ;  If  ■  rejoiced  because  my  wealth  was 
great,  and  because  mine  hand  had  gotten  much  ;  F  I  beheld 
the  sun  when  it  shined,  or  the  moon  walking  in  brightness  ;  and 
my  heart  hath  been  secretly  enticed,  or  ray  mouth  hath  kissed 
my  hand  ;  this  also  were  an  iniquity  to  be  punished  b^  the 
judge  ;  for  I  should  have  denied  the  God  that  is  above." — 
Job  xxxi.  24— 28,  .  ,  »  -  192 


DISCOURSE  1. 

ON  THE  MERCANTILE  VIRTUES  WHICH  MAY  EXIST 
"WITHOUT  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


"  Finally,  brethren,  whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatsoever  things 
are  honest,  whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are 
pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of 
good  report ;  if  there  be  any  virtue,  and  if  there  be  any  praise, 
think  on  these  things.'' — Phill.  iv.  8. 

Thk  Apostle,  in  these  verses,  makes  use  of  cer- 
tain terms  without  ever  once  proposing  to  advance 
anj  definition  of  their  meaning.  He  presumes  on 
a  common  understanding  of  this,  between  himself 
and  the  people  whom  he  is  addressing.  He  pre- 
sumes that  they  know  what  is  signified  by  Truth, 
and  Justice,  and  Loveliness,  and  the  other  moral 
qualities  which  are  included  in  the  enumeration  of 
our  text.  They,  in  fact,  had  words  to  express  them, 
for  many  ages  antecedent  to  the  coming  of  Chris- 
tiaully  into  the  world.  Now,  the  very  existence  of 
the  words  proves  chat,  before  the  gospel  was  taught, 
the  realities  which  they  express  must  have  existed 
also.     These  good   and   respectable  attributes  of 


8  CHALMERS*  DISCOURSES. 

character  must  have  been  occasionally  exemplified 
by  men,  prior  to  the  religion  of  the  New  Testament. 
The  virtuous  and  the  praiseworthy  must,  ere  the 
commencement  of  the  new  dispensation,  have  been 
met  with  in  society — for  the  Apostle  does  not  take 
them  up  in  this  passage,  as  if  they  were  unknown 
and  unheard  of  novelties — but  such  objects  of  gen- 
eral recognition,  as  could  be  understood  on  the 
bare  mention  of  them,  without  warning  and  without 
explanation. 

But  more  than  this.  These  virtues  must  not  only 
have  been  exemplified  by  men,  previous  to  the  en- 
trance of  the  gospel  amongst  them — seeing  that  the 
terms,  expressive  of  the  virtues  were  perfectly  un- 
derstood— but  men  must  have  known  how  to  love 
and  to  admire  them.  How  is  it  that  we  apply  the 
epithet  lovely  to  any  moral  qualification,  but  only 
in  as  far  as  that  qualification  does  in  fact  draw  to- 
wards it  a  sentiment  of  love  ?  How  is  it  that  anoth- 
er qualification  is  said  to  be  of  good  report,  but  in 
as  far  as  it  has  received  from  men  an  applauding  or 
an  honourable  testimony  ?  The  Apostle  does  not  bid 
his  readers  have  respect  to  such  things  as  are  love- 
ly, and  then,  for  the  purpose  of  saving  them  from 
error,  enumerate  what  the  things  are  which  he  con- 
ceives to  possess  this  qualification.  He  commits 
the  matter,  with  perfect  confidence,  to  their  own 
sense  and  tbeir  own  apprehension.  He  bids  them 
bear  a  respect  to  whatsoever  things  are  lovely — nor 


CH4LMERS'  DISCOURSES.  9 

does  he  seem  at  all  suspicious,  that,  by  so  doing,  he 
leaves  them  in  any  darkness  or  unceriainty  about 
the  precise  import  of  the  aJvice  which  he  is  dehv- 
ering.  He  therefore  recognizes  the  competency 
of  men  to  estimate  the  lovely  and  the  honourable  of 
character.  He  appeals  to  a  tribunal  in  their  own 
breasts,  and  evidently  suppo-^es,  that,  antecedently 
to  the  light  of  the  Christian  revelation,  there  lay 
scattered  among  the  species  certain  principles  of 
feeling  and  of  action,  in  virtue  of  which,  they  both 
occasionally  exhibited  what  was  just,  and  true,  and 
of  good  report,  and  also  could  render  to  such  an 
exhibition  the  homage  of  their  regard  and  of  their 
reverence.  At  present  we  shall  postpone  the  di- 
rect enforcement  of  these  virtues  upon  the  observa- 
tion of  Christians,  and  shall  corifme  our  thoughts  ol 
them  to  the  object  of  estimating  their  precise 
importance  and  character,  when  they  are  realized 
by  those  who  are  not  Christians. 

While  we  assert  with  zeal  every  doctrine  of 
Christianity,  let  us  not  forget  that  there  is  a  zeal 
without  discrimination  ;  and  that,  to  bring  such  a 
spirit  to  the  defence  of  our  faith,  or  of  any  one  of  its 
peculiarities,  is  not  to  vmdicate  the  cause,  but  to 
discredit  it.  Now,  there  is  a  way  of  maintaining 
the  utter  depravity  of  our  nature,  and  of  doing  it  in 
such  a  style  of  sweeping  and  of  vehement  asseve- 
ration, as  to  render  it  not  merely  obnoxious  to  the 
taste,  but  obnoxious  to  the  understanding.  On  this 
subject  there  is  often  a  roundness  and  a  temerity  of 


{0  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

announcement,  which  any  intclhgent  man,  looking 
at  the  phenomena  of  iiuman  character  with  his  own 
eyes,  cannot  go  along  with  ;  and  thus  it  is,  that  there 
are  injudicious  defenders  of  orthodoxy,  who  have 
mustered  against  it  not  merely  a  positive  dislike, 
but  a  positive  strength  of  observation  and  argument. 
Let  the  nature  of  man  be  a  ruin,  as  it  certainly  is, 
it  is  obvious  to  the  most  common  discernment,  that 
it  does  not  offer  one  unvaried  and  unalleviated  mass 
of  deformity.  There  are  certain  phrases,  and  cer- 
tain exhibitions  of  this  nature,  which  are  more  love- 
ly than  others — certaiji  traits  of  character,  not  due 
to  the  operation  of  Christianity  at  all,  and  yet  call- 
ing forth  our  admiration  and  our  tenderness — cer- 
tain varieties  of  moral  complexion,  far  more  fair 
and  more  engaging  than  certain  other  varieties  ; 
and  to  prove  that  the  gospel  may  have  had  no  share 
in  the  formation  of  them,  they  in  fact  stood  out  to 
the  notice  and  the  respect  of  the  world  before  the 
gospel  was  ever  heard  of.  The  classic  page  of 
antiquity  sparkles  with  repeated  exemplitications 
of  what  is  bright  and  beautiful  in  the  character  of 
man  ;  nor  do  all  its  descriptions  of  external  nature 
waken  up  such  an  enthusiasm  of  pleasure,  as  when 
it  bears  testimony  to  some  graceful  or  elevated 
doing  out  of  the  history  of  the  species.  And  wheth- 
er it  be  the  kindness  of  maternal  affection,  or  the 
unweariedness  of  filial  piety,  or  the  constancy  of 
tried  and  unalterable  friendship,  or  the  earnestness 
of  devoted  patriotism,  or  the  rigour  of  unbending 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  11 

fidelity,  or  any  other  of  the  recorded  virtues,  which 
shed  a  glory  over  the  remembrance  of  Greece  and 
of  Rome — we  fully  concede  it  to  the  admiring  scho- 
lar, that  they  one  and  all  of  them  were  sometimes 
exemplified  in  those  days  of  Heathenism  ;  and  that 
out  of  the  materials  of  a  period,  crowded  as  it  was 
with  moral  abominations,  there  may  also  be  gather- 
ed things  which  are  pure,  and  lovely,  and  true,  and 
just,  and  honest,  and  of  good  report. 

What  do  we  mean  then,  it  may  be  asked,  by  the 
universal  depravity  of  man  ?  How  shall  we  recon- 
cile the  admission  now  made,  with  the  unqualified 
and  authoritative  language  of  the  Bible  when  it  tells 
us  of  the  totahty  and  the  magnitude  of  human  cor- 
ruption ?  Wherein  lies  that  desperate  wickedness, 
which  is  every  where  ascribed  to  all  the  men  of  all 
the  families  that  be  on  the  face  of  the  earth  ?  And 
how  can  such  a  tribute  of  acknowledgment  be  award- 
ed to  the  sages  and  the  patriots  of  antiquity,  who 
yet,  as  the  partakers  of  our  fallen  nature,  must  be 
outcasts  from  the  favour  of  God,  and  have  the  char- 
acter of  evil  stamped  upon  the  imaginations  of  the 
thoughts  of  their  hearts  continually. 

In  reply  to  these  questions,  let  us  speak  to  your 
own  experimental  recollections  on  a  subject  in  which 
you  are  aided  both  by  the  consciousness  of  what 
passes  within  you,  and  by  your  observation  of  the 
character  of  others.  Might  not  a  sense  of  honour 
elevate  that  heart  which  is  totally  unfurnished  with 
a  sense  of  God  ?  Might  not  an  impulse  of  compas- 


12  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

sionate  feeling  be  sent  into  that  bosonn  which  is  nev- 
er once  visited  by  a  movement  of  duteous  loyalty 
towards  the  Lawgiver  in  heaven  ?  Might  not  occa- 
sions of  intercourse  with  the  beings  around  us,  de- 
velope  whatever  there  is  in  our  nature  of  generosi- 
ty, and  friendship,  and  integrity,  and  patriotism ; 
and  yet  the  unseen  Being,  who  placed  us  in  this 
theatre,  be  neither  loved  nor  obeyed,  nor  listened 
to  ?  Amid  the  manifold  varieties  of  human  charac- 
ter, and  the  number  of  constitutional  principles 
which  enter  into  its  composition,  might  there  not  be 
an  individual  in  whom  the  constitutional  virtues  so 
blaze  forth  and  have  the  ascendency,  as  to  give  a 
general  effect  of  gracefulness  to  the  whole  of  this 
moral  exhibition  ;  and  yet,  may  not  that  individual 
be  as  unmindful  of  his  God,  as  if  the  principles  of 
his  constitution  had  been  mixed  up  in  such  a  differ- 
ent proportion,  as  to  make  him  an  odious  and  a  re- 
volting spectacle  ?  In  a  word,  might  not  sensibility 
3hed  forth  its  tears,  and  Friendship  perform  its  ser- 
vices, and  Liberahty  impart  of  its  treasure,  and 
Patriotism  earn  the  gratitude  of  its  country,  and 
Honour  maintain  itself  entire  and  untainted,  and  all 
the  softenings  of  what  is  amiable,  and  all  the  glories 
of  what  is  chivalrous  and  manly,  gather  into  one 
bright  elFulgency  of  moral  accomplishment  on 
the  person  of  him  who  never,  for  a  single  day  of 
his  life,  subordinates  one  habit,  or  one  affection, 
to  the  will  of  the  Almighty  ;  who  is  just  as  care- 
less and   as  unconcerned  about  God,  as  if  the  na- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  13 

live  tendencies  of  his  constitution  had  compounded 
him  into  a  monster  of  deformity  ;  and  who  just  as 
effectually  reahzes  this  attribute  of  rebellion  against 
his  maker,  as  the  most  loathsome  and  profligate  of 
the  species,  that  he  walks  in  the  counsel  of  his  own 
heart,  and  after  the  sight  of  his  own  eyes  ? 

The  same  constitutional  variety  may  be  seen  on 
the  lower  fields  of  creation.     You  there  witness  the 
gentleness  of  one  animal,  the  affectionate  fidelity  of 
another,  the  cruel  and  unrelenting  ferocity  of  a 
third  ;  and  you  never  question  the  propriety  of  the 
language,  when  some  of  these  instinctive  tenden- 
cies are  better  reported  of  than  others  ;  or  when  it 
is  said  of  the  former  of  them,  that  they  are  the  more 
fine,  and  amiable,  and  endearing.     But  it  does  not 
once  occur  to  you,  that,  even  in  the  very  best  of 
these  exhibitions,  there  is  any  sense  of  God,  or  that 
the  great  master-principle  of  his  authority  is  at  all 
concerned  in  it.     Transfer  this  contemplation  back 
again  to   our  species  5  and  under  the  same  com* 
plexional  difference  of  the  more  and  the  less  lovely, 
and  the  more  and  the  less  hateful,  you  will  perceive 
the  same  utter  insensibility  to  the  consideration  of 
a  God,  or  the  same  utter  inefticiency  on  the  part  of 
liis  law  to  subdue  human  habits  and  human  inclina- 
tions.    It  is  true,  that  there  is  one  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  cases  ;  but  it  all  goes  to  aggravates 
the  guilt  and  ingratitude  qf  man.     He  has  an  under^ 
standing  which  the  inferior  animals  have  not — and 
yet,  with  this  understanding  does  he  refuse  prncti' 

5 


14  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

cally  to  acknowledge  God.  He  has  a  conscience, 
which  they  have  not — and  yet,  though  it  whisper  in 
the  ear  of  his  inner  man  the  claims  of  an  unseen 
legislator,  does  he  lull  away  his  time  in  the  slumbers 
of  indifference,  and  live  without  him  in  the  world. 

Or  go  to  the  people  of  another  planet,  over  whom 
the  hold  of  allegiance  to  their  maker  is  unbroken — 
in  whose  hearts  the  Supreme  sits  enthroned,  and 
throughout  the  whole  of  whose  history  there  runs 
the  perpetual  and  the  unfaihng  habit  of  subordina- 
tion to  his  law.     It  is  conceivable,  that  with  them 
too,  there  may  be  varieties  of  temper  and  of  natural 
inclination,  and  yet  all  of  them  be  under  the  effec- 
tive control  of  one  great  and  imperious  principle  ; 
that  in  subjection  to  the  will  of  God,  every  kind 
and  every  honourable  disposition  is  cherished  to 
the  uttermost ;  and  that  in  subjection  to  the  same 
will,  every  tendency  to  anger,  and  malignity,  and 
revenge,  is  repressed  at  the  first  moment  of  its  threa- 
tened operation  ;  and  that  in  this  way,  there  will  be 
the  fostering  of  a  constant  encouragement  given  to 
the  one  set  of  instincts,  and  the  struggling  of  a  con- 
stant opposition  made  against  the  other.     Now, 
only  conceive  this  great  bond  of  allegiance  to  be 
dissolved ;  the  mighty  and  subordinating  principle, 
which   wont  to  wield  an  ascendancy  over  every 
movement  and  every  affection,  to  be  loosened  and 
done  away ;  and  then  would   this  loyal,  obedient 
world,  become  what  ours  is — independent  of  Chris- 
tianity.    Every  constitutional  desire  would  run  out. 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  15 

in  the  unchecked  spontaneity  of  its  own  movements. 
The  law  of  heaven  would  furnish  no  counteraction 
to  the  impulses  and  the  tendencies  of  nature.  And 
tell  us,  in  these  circumstances,  when  the  restraint 
of  religion  was  thus  lifted  off,  and  all  the  passions 
let  out  to  take  their  own  tumultuous  and  indepen- 
dent career — tell  us,  if,  though  amid  the  uproar  of 
the  licentious  and  vindictive  propensities,  there  did 
gleam  forth  at  times  some  of  the  finer  and  the  love- 
lier sympathies  of  nature — tell  us,  if  this  would  at 
all  affect  the  state  of  that  world  as  a  state  of  enmi- 
ty against  God  :  where  his  will  was  reduced  to  an 
element  of  utter  insignificancy ;  where  the  voice 
of  their  rightful  master  fell  powerless  on  the  con- 
sciences of  a  listless  and  alienated  family  ;  where 
humour,  and  interest,  and  propensity — at  one  time 
selfish,  and  at  another  social — took  their  alternate 
sway  over  those  hearts  from  which  there  was  exclu- 
ded all  effectual  sense  of  an  over-ruling  God  !  If  he 
be  unheeded  and  disowned  by  the  creatures  whom 
he  has  formed,  can  it  be  said  to  alleviate  the  defor- 
mity of  their  rebellion,  that  they,  at  times,  experi- 
ence the  impulse  of  some  amiable  feeling  which  he 
hath  implanted,  or  at  times  hold  out  some  beaute- 
ousness  of  aspect  which  he  hath  shed  over  them  ? 
Shall  the  value  or  the  multitude  of  the  gifts  release 
them  from  their  loyalty  to  the  giver  ;  and  when  na- 
ture puts  herself  into  the  attitude  of  indiiierence  or 
hostility  against  him,  how  is  it  that  the  graces  and 
the  accomplishments  of  nature  can  be  pled  in  miti- 


iO  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

gation  of  her  antipathy  to  him,  who  invested  nature 
with  all  her  graces,  and  upholds  her  in  the  display 
©f  all  her  accomplishments  ? 

The  way,  then,  to  assert  the  depravity  of  man,  is 
to  fasten  on  the  radical  element  of  depravity,  and  to 
show  how  deeply  it  lies  incorporated  with  his  moral 
constitution.  It  is  not  by  an  utterance  of  rash  and 
sweeping  totality  to  refuse  him  the  possession  of 
what  is  kind  in  sympathy,  or  of  what  is  dignified  in 
principle — for  this  were  in  the  face  of  all  observa- 
tion. It  is  to  charge  him  direct  with  his  utter  dis* 
loyalty  to  God.  It  is  to  convict  him  of  treason  a- 
gainst  the  majesty  of  heaven.  It  is  to  press  home 
upon  him  the  impiety  of  not  caring  about  God.  It 
is  to  tell  him,  that  the  hourly  and  habitual  language 
of  his  heart  is,  I  will  not  have  the  Being  who  made 
me  to  rule  over  me.  It  is  to  go  to  the  man  of  hon- 
our, and,  while  we  frankly  award  it  to  him  that  his 
pulse  beats  high  in  the  pride  of  integrity — it  is  to  tell 
him,  that  he  who  keeps  it  in  living  play,  and  who 
sustains  the  loftiness  of  its  movements,  and  who,  in 
one  moment  of  time  could  arrest  it  forever,  is  not  in 
all  his  thoughts.  It  is  to  go  to  the  man  of  soft  and 
gentle  emotions,  and,  whil^  we  gaze  in  tenderness 
upon  him — it  is  to  read  to  him,  out  of  his  own  cha- 
racter, how  the  exquisite  mechanism  of  feeling  may 
be  in  full  operation,  while  he  who  framed  it  is  for- 
gotten ;  while  he  who  poured  into  his  constitution 
the  milk  of  human  kindness,  may  never  be  adverted 
to  with  one  single  sentiment  of  veneration,  or  one 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES,  17 

single  purpose  of  obedience ;  while  he  who  gave 
him  his  gentler  nature,  who  clothed  him  in  all  its 
adornments,  and  in  virtue  of  whose  appointment  it 
is,  that,  instead  of  an  odious  and  a  revolting  mon- 
ster, he  is  the  much  loved  child  of  sensibility,  may 
be  utterly  disowned  by  him.  In  a  word,  it  is  to  go 
round  among  all  that  Humanity  has  to  offer  in  the 
shape  of  fair  and  amiable,  and  engaging,  and  to 
prove  how  deeply  Humanity  has  revolted  against 
that  Being  who  has  done  so  much  to  beautify  and  to 
exalt  her.  It  is  to  prove  that  the  carnal  mind,  un- 
der all  its  varied  complexions  of  harshness  or  of 
delicacy,  is  enmity  against  God.  It  is  to  prove  that, 
let  nature  be  as  rich  as  she  may  in  moral  accom- 
phshments,  and  let  the  most  favoured  of  her  sons 
realize  upon  his  own  person  the  finest  and  the  ful- 
lest assemblage  of  them — should  he,  at  the  moment 
of  leaving  this  theatre  of  display,  and  bursting  loose 
from  the  framework  of  mortality,  stand  in  the  pres- 
ence of  his  judge,  and  have  the  question  put  to  him, 
What  hast  thou  done  unto  me  ?  this  man  of  consti- 
tutional virtue,  with  all  the  salutations  he  got  upon 
earth,  and  all  the  reverence  that  he  has  left  behind 
him,  may,  naked  and  defenceless,  before  him  who 
sitteth  on  the  throne,  be  left  without  a  plea  and 
without  an  argument. 

God^s  controversy  with  our  species,  is  not,  that 
the  glow  of  honour  or  of  humanity  is  never  felt  a- 
mong  them.  It  is,  that  none  of  them  understandeth, 
and  none  of  them  seeketh  after  God.     It  is,  that  be 


18  CHALMERS^  DISCOURSES. 

is  deposed  from  his  rightful  ascendancy.  It  is  that 
he,  who  in  fact  inserted  in  the  human  bosom  every 
one  principle  that  can  embelhsh  the  individual  pos- 
sessor, or  maintain  the  order  of  society,  is  banished 
altogether  from  the  circle  of  his  habitual  contem- 
plations. It  is,  that  a  man  taketh  his  way  in  life  as 
much  at  random,  as  if  there  was  no  presiding  Di- 
vinity at  all ;  and  that,  whether  he  at  one  time  gro- 
vel in  the  depths  of  sensuality,  or  at  another  kindle 
with  some  generous  movement  of  sympathy  or  of 
patriotism,  he  is  at  both  times  alike  unmindful  of 
him  to  whom  he  owes  his  continuance  and  his  birth. 
It  is,  that  he  moves  his  every  footstep  at  his  own 
will ;  and  has  utterly  discarded,  from  its  supremacy 
over  him,  the  will  of  that  invisible  Master  who  com- 
passes all  his  goings,  and  never  ceases  to  pursue  him 
by  the  claims  of  a  resistless  and  legitimate  authori- 
ty. It  is  this  which  is  the  essential  or  the  constitu- 
ting principle  of  rebellion  against  God.  This  it  is 
which  has  exiled  the  planet  we  live  in  beyond  the 
limits  of  his  favoured  creation — and  whether  it  be 
shrouded  in  the  turpitude  of  licentiousness  or  cru- 
elty, or  occasionally  brightened  with  the  gleam  of 
the  kindly  and  the  honouiable  virtues,  it  is  thus  that 
it  is  seenasafaroff,  byHimwhosittethon  the  throne, 
and  looketh  on  our  strayed  world,  as  athwart  a  wide 
and  a  dreary  gulf  of  separation. 

And  wiien  prompted  by  love  towards  his  aliena- 
ted children,  he  devised  a  way  of  recalling  them — 
when  willing  to  pass  over  all  the  ingratitude  he  had 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  19 

gotten  from  their  hands,  he  reared  a  pathway  of  re- 
turn, and  proclaimed  a  pardon  and  a  welcome  to  all 
who  should  walk  upon  it — when  through  the  offered 
Mediator,  who  magnified  his  broken  law,andupheld, 
by  his  mysterious  sacritice,  the  dignity  of  that  gov- 
ernment which  the  children  of  Adam  had  disowned, 
he  invited  all  to  come  to  him  and  be  saved — should 
this  message  be  brought  to  the  door  of  the  most 
honourable  man  upon  earth,  and  he  turn  in  con- 
tempt and  hostility  away  from  it,  has  not  that  man 
posted  himself  more  firmly  than  ever  on  the  ground 
of  rebellion  ?  Though  an  unsullied  integrity  should 
rest  upon  all  his  trausaciions,  and  the  homage  of 
confidence  and  respect  be  awarded  to  him  from  ev- 
ery quarter  of  society,  has  i^ot  this  man,  by  siighiing 
the  overtures  of  reconciliation,  just  plunged  him- 
self the  deeper  in  the  guilt  of  a  wilful  and  determin- 
ed ungodliness  ?  lias  not  the  creature  exalted  itself 
above  the  Creator  ;  and  in  the  pride  ot  those  ac- 
complishments, which  never  would  have  invested 
his  person  had  they  not  come  to  him  trom  above, 
has  he  not,  in  the  act  of  resisting  the  gospel,  aggra- 
vated the  provocation  of  his  whole  previous  defi- 
ance to  the  author  of  it  ? 

Thus  much  lor  all  that  is  amiable,  and  for  all  that 
is  manly,  in  the  accomplisements  of  nature,  when 
disjoined  from  the  faith  of  Christianity.  They  take 
up  a  separate  residence  in  the  human  character 
from  the  prijiciple  of  godliness.  Anterior  to  this 
religion,  they  go  not  to  alleviate  the  guilt  of  our 


20  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES, 

departure  from  the  living  God ;  and  subsequently 
to  this  religion,  they  may  blazon  the  character  of 
him  who  stands  out  against  it ;  but  on  the  princi- 
ples of  a  most  clear  and  intelligent  equity,  they  nev- 
er can  shield  him  from  the  condemnation  and  the 
curse  of  those  who  have  neglected  the  great  salva- 
tion. 

The  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament  wDl  bear  to 
be  confronted  with  all  that  can  be  met  or  noticed 
on  the  face  of  human  society.  And  we  speak  most 
confidently,  to  the  experience  of  many  who  now 
hear  us,  when  we  say,  that  often,  in  the  course  of 
their  manifold  transactions,  have  they  met  the  man 
whom  the  bribery  of  no  advantage  whatever  could 
seduce  into  the  slightest  deviation  from  the  path  of 
integrity — the  man,  who  felt  his  nature  within  him 
put  into  a  state  of  the  most  painful  indignancy,  at 
every  thing  that  bore  upon  it  the  character  of  a 
sneaking  or  dishonourable  artifice — the  man,  who 
positively  could  not  be  at  rest  under  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  had  ever  betrayed,  even  to  his  own 
heart,  the  remotest  symptom  of  such  an  inclination, 
and  whom,  therefore,  the  unaided  law  of  justice 
and  of  truth  has  placed  on  a  high  and  deserved  em- 
inence in  the  walks  of  honourable  merchandise. 

Let  us  not  withhold  from  this  character  the  trib- 
ute of  its  most  rightful  admiration  ;  but  let  us  fur- 
ther ask,  if,  with  all  he  thus  possessed  of  native  feel- 
ing and  constitutional  integrity,  you  have  never  ob- 
served in  any  such  individual  an  utter  emptiness  of 


eHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  21 

relij]jion ;  and  that  God  is  not  in  all  his  thoaghts ; 
and  that,  when  he  does  what  happens  to  be  at  one 
with  the  will  of  the  Lawgiver,  it  is  not  because  he 
is  impelled  to  it  by  a  sense  of  its  being  the  will  of 
the  Lawgiver,  but  because  he  is  impelled  to  it  by 
the  working  of  his  own  instinctive  sensibilities  ;  and 
that,   however   fortunate,    or   however    estimable 
these    sensibilities  are,  they  still  consist  with  the 
habit  of  a  mind  that  is  in  a    state  of  total  indiffer- 
ence about  God  ?    Have   you  never  read  in  your 
own  character,  or  in  the  observed  character  of  oth- 
ers, that  the  claims  of  the  Divinity  may  be  entirely 
forgotten  by  the  very  man  to  whom  society  around 
him  yield,  and  rightly  yield,  the  homage  of  an  un- 
sullied  and  honourable  reputation  ;    that  this  man 
may  have  all  his  foundations  in  the  world  ;  that  ev- 
ery security  on  which  he  rests,  and  every  enjoy- 
ment upon  which  his  heart  is  set,  lieth  on  this  side 
of  death  ;  that  a  sense  of  the  coming  day  on  which 
God  is  to  enter  into  judgment  with  him,  is,  to  every 
purpose   of  practical  ascendency,  as  good  as  ex- 
punged altogether  from  his  bosom  ;  that  he  is  far  in 
desire,  and  far  in  enjoyment,  and  far  in  habitual 
contemplation,  away  from  that  God  who  is  not  far 
from  any  one  of  us  ;    that  his  extending  credit,  and 
his  brightening  prosperity,  and  his  magnificent  re- 
treat from  business,  with  all  the  splendour  of  its  ac- 
commodations— that  these    are    the    futurities    at 
which   he  terminates ;     and  that  he   goes  not  in 
thought  beyond  them  to  that  eternity^  which,  in  the 


22  CPIALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

flight  of  a  few  little  years,  will  absorb  all,  and  anni- 
hilate all  ?  In  a  word,  have  you  never  observed  the 
man,  who,  with  all  that  was  right  in  mercantile 
principle,  and  all  that  was  open  and  unimpeacha- 
ble in  the  habit  of  his  mercantile  transactions,  liv- 
ed in  a  state  of  utter  estrangement  from  the  con- 
cerns of  immortality  ?  who,  in  reference  to  God, 
persisted,  from  one  year  to  another,  in  the  spirit  of 
a  deep  slumber  ?  who,  in  reference  to  the  man  that 
tries  to  awaken  him  out  of  his  lethargy,  recoils, 
with  the  most  sensitive  dislike,  from  the  faithfulness 
of  his  ministrations  ?  who,  in  reference  to  the  Book 
which  tells  him  of  his  nakedness  and  his  guilt,  nev- 
er consults  it  with  one  practical  aim,  and  never 
tries  to  penetrate  beyond  that  aspect  of  mysterious- 
ness  which  it  holds  out  to  an  undiscerning  world  ? 
who  attends  not  church,  or  attends  it  with  all  the 
lifelessness  of  a  form  ?  who  reads  not  his  Bible,  or 
reads  it  in  the  discharge  of  a  self-prescribed  and  un- 
fruitful task  ?  who  prays  not,  or  prays  with  the 
mockery  of  an  unmeaning  observation  ?  and,  in  one 
word,  who  while  surrounded  by  all  those  testimo- 
nies which  give  to  man  a  place  of  moral  distinction 
among  his  fellows,  is  living  in  utter  carelessness 
about  God,  and  about  all  the  avenues  which  lead 
to  him  ? 

Now  attend  for  a  moment  to  what  that  is  which 
this  man  has,  and  to  what  that  is  which  he  has  not. 
He  has  an  attribute  of  character  which  is  in  itself 
pure,  and  lovely,  and  honourable,  and  of  good  re* 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  23 

port.  He  has  a  natural  principle  of  integrity  ,  and 
under  its  impulse  he  may  be  carried  forward  to 
such  fine  exhibitions  of  himself,  as  are  worthy  of 
all  admiration.  It  is  very  noble,  when  the  simple 
utterance  of  his  word  carries  as  much  security 
along  with  it,  as  if  he  had  accompanied  that  utter- 
ance by  the  signatures,  and  the  securities,  and  the 
legal  obligations,  which  are  required  of  other  men* 
It  might  tempt  one  to  be  proud  of  his  species  when 
he  looks  at  the  faith  that  is  put  in  him  by  a  distant 
correspondent,  who,  without  one  other  hold  of  him 
than  his  honour,  consigns  to  him  the  wealth  of  a 
whole  flotilla,  and  sleeps  in  the  confidence  that  it 
is  safe.  It  is  indeed  an  animating  thought,  amid 
the  gloom  of  this  world's  depravity,  when  we  be- 
hold the  credit  which  one  man  puts  in  another, 
though  separated  by  oceans  and  by  continents  ; 
when  he  fixes  the  anchor  of  a  sure  and  steady  de- 
pendence on  the  reported  honesty  of  one  whom  he 
never  saw  ;  when,  with  all  his  fears  for  the  treach- 
ery of  the  varied  elements,  through  which  his  prop- 
erty has  to  pass,  he  knows,  that  should  it  only  ar- 
rive at  the  door  of  its  destined  agent,  all  his  fears 
and  all  his  suspicions  may  be  at  an  end.  We  know 
nothing  finer  than  such  an  act  of  homage  from  one 
human  being  to  another,  when  perhaps  the  diame- 
ter of  the  globe  is  between  them  ;  nor  do  we  think 
that  either  the  renown  of  her  victories,  or  the  wis- 
dom of  her  counsels,  so  signalizes  the  country  in 
which  we  live,  as  does  the  honourable  dealing  of 


24  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

her  merchants  ;  that  all  the  glories  of  British  policy, 
and  British  valour,  are  far  eclipsed  by  the  moral 
splendour  which  British  faith  has  thrown  over  the 
name  and  the  character  of  our  nation  ;  nor  has  she 
gathered  so  proud  a  distinction  from  all  the  tribu- 
taries of  her  power,  as  she  has  done  from  the 
awarded  confidence  of  those  men  of  all  tribes,  and 
colours,  and  languages,  who  look  to  our  agency  for 
the  most  faithful  of  all  management,  and  to  our 
keeping  for  the  most  unviolable  of  all  custody. 

There  is  no  denying,  then,  the  very  extended 
prevalence  of  a  principle  of  integrity  in  the  com- 
mercial world  ;  and  he  who  has  such  a  principle 
within  him,  has  that  to  which  all  the  epithets  of  our 
text  may  rightly  be  appropriated.  But  it  is  just  as 
impossible  to  deny,  that,  with  this  thing  which  he 
has,  there  may  be  another  thing  which  he  has  not^ 
He  may  not  have  one  duteous  feeling  of  reverence 
which  points  upward  to  God.  He  may  not  have 
one  wish,  or  one  anticipation,  which  points  for- 
ward to  eternity.  He  may  not  have  any  sense  of 
dependence  on  the  Being  who  sustains  him  ;  and 
who  gave  him  his  very  principle  of  honour,  as  part 
of  that  interior  furniture  which  he  has  put  into  his 
bosom ;  and  who  surrounded  him  with  the  theatre 
on  which  he  has  come  forward  with  the  finest  and 
most  illustrious  displays  of  it ;  and  who  set  the 
whole  machinery  of  his  sentiment  and  action  a-go- 
ing ;  and  can  by  a  single  word  of  his  power,  bid  it 
cease  from  the  variety,  and  cease  from  the  grace- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  25 

i'ulness,  of  its  movements.     In  other  words,  he  is  a 
man  of  integrity,  and  yet  he  is  a  man  of  ungodli- 
ness.    He  is  a  man  born  for  the  confidence  and  ad- 
miration of  his  fellows,  and  yet  a  man  whom  his 
maker  can  charge  with  utter  defection  from  all  the 
principles  of  a  spiritual  obedience.     He  is  a  man 
whose  virtues  have  blazoned  his  own  character  in 
time,  and  have  upheld  the  interests  of  society,  and 
yet  a  man  who  has  not,  by  one  movement  of  prin- 
ciple,  brought  himself  nearer  to  the  kingdom  of 
heaven,  than  the  most  profligate  of  the  species. 
The  condemnation,   that  he  is  an  alien  from  God 
rests  upon  him  in  all  the  weight  of  its  unmitigated 
severity.     The  threat,  that  they  who  forget  God 
shall  be   turned  into  hell,  will  on  the  great  day  of 
its  fell  and  sweeping  operation,  involve  him  among 
the   wretched   outcasts    of  eternity.       That  God 
from  whom,  while  in  the  world,  he  withheld  every 
due  offering  of  gratitude,  and   remembrance,  and 
universal  subordination  of  habit  and  of  desire,  will 
show  him  to  his  face,  how  under  the  delusive  garb 
of  such  sympathies  as  drew  upon  him  the  love  of 
his  acquaintances,  and  of  such  integrities  as  drew 
upon  him  their  respect  and  their  confidence,  he  was 
in  fact  a  determined  rebel  against  the  authority  of 
heaven ;  that  not  one  commandment  of  the  law,  in 
the  true  extent  of  its  interpretation,  was  ever  ful- 
filled by  him  ;  that  the  pervading  principle  of  obe- 
dience to  this  law,  which  is  love  to  God,  never  had 
its  ascendency  over  him  ;  that  the  beseeching  voice 


26  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

of  the  Lawgiver,  so  offended  and  so  insulted — but 
who,  nevertheless,  devised  in  love  a  way  of  recon- 
ciliation for  the  guilty,  never  had  the  effect  of  re- 
calling him  ;  that,  in  fact,  he  never  had  a  wish  for 
the  friendship  of  God,  nor  cherished  the  hope  of 
enjoying  him — and  that  therefore,  as  he  lived  with- 
out hope,  so  he  lived  without  God  in  the  world ; 
finding  all  his  desire,  and  all  his  sufliciency,  to  be 
somewhere  else,  than  in  that  favour  which  is  better 
than  Hfe  ;  and  so  in  addition  to  the  curse  of  having 
continued  not  in  all  the  words  of  the  book  of  God's 
law  to  do  them,  entailing  upon  him&eif  the  mighty 
aggravation  of  having  neglected  all  the  offers  of  his 
gospel. 

We  say,  then,  of  this  natural  virtue,  what  our 
Saviour  said  of  the  virtue  of  the  Pharisees,  many 
of  whom  were  not  extortioners  as  other  men — that, 
verily,  it  hath  its  reward.  When  disjoined  from  a 
sense  of  God,  it  is  of  no  religious  estimation  whate- 
ver ;  nor  will  it  lead  to  any  religious  blessing,  either 
intime  or  in  eternity.  It  has,  however,  its  enjoy- 
ments annexed  to  it,  just  as  a  fine  taste  has  its  en- 
joyments annexed  to  it ;  and  in  these  it  is  abund- 
antly rewarded.  It  is  exempted  from  that  painful- 
ness  of  inward  feeling  which  nature  has  annexed  to 
every  act  of  departure  from  honesty.  It  is  sustain- 
ed by  a  conscious  sense  of  rectitude  and  elevation. 
It  is  gratified  by  the  homage  of  society  ;  the  mem- 
bers of  which  are  ever  ready  to  award  the  tribute 
of  acknowledgment  to  those  virtues  that  support 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  27 

the  interests  of  society.  And,  finally,  it  may  be 
said,  that  prosperity,  with  some  occasional  varia- 
tions is  the  general  accompaniment  of  that  credit, 
which  every  man  of  undeviating  justice  is  sure  to 
draw  around  him.  But  what  reward,  will  you  tell 
us  is  due  to  him  on  the  great  day  of  the  manifesta- 
tion of  God's  righteousness,  when,  in  fact,  he  has 
done  nothing  unto  God  ?  What  recompense  can 
be  awarded  to  him  out  of  those  books  which  are 
then  to  be  opened,  and  in  which  he  stands  recorded 
as  a  man  overcharged  with  the  guilt  of  spiritual 
idolatry  ?  How  shall  God  grant  unto  him  the  re- 
ward of  a  servant,  when  the  service  of  God  was 
not  the  principle  of  his  doings  in  the  world  ;  and 
when  neither  the  justice  he  rendered  to  others,  nor 
the  sensibility  that  he  felt  for  them,  bore  the  slight- 
est character  of  an  offering  to  his  Maker  ? 

But  wherever  the  religious  principle  has  taken 
possession  of  the  mind,  it  animates  these  virtues  w  ith 
a  new  spirit ;  and  when  so  animated,  all  such  things 
as  are  pure,  and  lovely,  and  just,  and  true,  and  hon- 
est, and  of  good  report,  have  a  religious  importance 
and  character  belonging  to  them.  The  text  forms 
part  of  an  epistle  addressed  to  all  the  saints  in  Christ 
Jesus,  which  were  at  Philippi ;  and  the  lesson  of  the, 
text  is  matter  of  direct  and  authoritative  enforce- 
ment, on  all  who  are  saints  in  Christ  Jesus  at  the 
present  day.  Christianity,  with  the  weight  of  its 
positive  sanctions  on  the  side  of  what  is  amiable  and 
honourable  in  human  virtue,  causes  such  an  inllu- 


28  CHALMERS*  DISCOURSES. 

ence  to  rest  on  the  cliaracter  of  its  genuine  disci- 
ples, that,  on  the  ground  both  ofinflexible  justice  and 
ever-breathing  charity,  they  are  ever  sure  to  leave 
the  vast  nij^ority  of  the  world  behind  them.  Sim- 
plicity and  godly  sincerity  form  essential  ingredients 
of  that  peculiarity  by  which  they  stand  signalized 
in  the  midst  of  an  ungodly  generation.  The  true 
friends  of  the  gospel,  tremblingly  alive  to  the  hon- 
our of  their  master's  cause,  blush  for  the  disgrace 
that  has  been  brought  on  it  by  men  who  keep  its  sab- 
baths, and  yield  an  ostentatious  homage  to  its  doc- 
trines and  its  sacraments.  They  utterly  disclaim 
all  fellowship  with  that  vile  association  of  cant  and 
of  duplicity,  which  has  sometimes  been  exemplified^ 
to  the  triumph  of  the  enemies  of  religion  ;  and  they 
both  feel  the  solemn  truth,  and  act  on  the  authority 
of  the  saying,  that  neither  thieves,  nor  liars,  nor 
extortioners,  nor  unrighteous  persons,  have  any 
part  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ  and  of  God. 


DISCOURSE  IL 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY  IN  AIDING  AND 
AUGMENTING  THE  MERCANTILE  VIRTUES. 


^'  For  he  that  in  these  things  serveth  Christ  is  acceptable  to  God, 
and  approved  of  men." — Rom.  xiv.  18. 

We  have  already  asserted  the  natural  existence 
of  such  principles  in  the  heart  of  man,  as  lead  him 
to  many  graceful   and  to  many  honourable  exhibi- 
tions of  character.     We  have  further  asserted,  that 
this  formed  no  deduction  whatever  from  that  article 
of  orthodoxy  which  affirms  the  utter  depravity  of 
our  nature  ;  that  the  essence  of  this  depravity  lies 
in  man  having  broken  loose  from  the  authority  of 
God,  and  delivered  himself  wholly  up  to  the  guid- 
ance of  his  own  inclinations ;  that  though  some  of 
these  inclinations  are  in  themselves  amiable  fea- 
tures of  human  character,  and  point  in  their  effects 
to  what  is  most  useful  to  human  society,  yet  devoid 
as  they  all  are  of  any  reference  to  the  will  and  right- 
ful sovereignty  of  the  Supreme  Being,  they  could 
not  avert,  or  even  so  much  as  alleviate,  that  charge 
of  ungodliness,  which  may  be  fully  carried   round 
amongst  all  the  sons  and  daughters  of  the  species  ; 
that  they  furnish  not  the  materials  of  any  valid  ok 

3  * 


30  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

satisfactory  answer  to  the  question,  "  What  hast 
thou  done  unto  God?"  and  that  whether  they  are 
the  desires  of  a  native  rectitude,  or  the  desires  of 
an  instinctive  henevolence,  they  go  not  to  purge  a- 
way  the  guiU  of  having  no  love,  and  no  care,  for 
the  Being  who  formed  and  who  sustains  us. 

But  what  is  more.  If  the  virtues  and  accomphsh- 
ments  of  nature  are  at  all  to  be  admitted  into  the 
controversy  between  God  and  man,  instead  of  for- 
ming any  abatement  upon  the  enormity  of  our  guilt, 
they  stamp  upon  it  the  reproach  of  a  still  deeper 
and  more  determined  ingratitude.  Let  us  conceive 
it  possible,  for  a  moment,  that  the  beautiful  person- 
ifications of  scripture  were  all  realized ;  that  the 
trees  of  the  forest  clapped  their  hands  unto  God, 
and  that  the  isles  were  glad  at  his  presence  ;  that 
the  little  hills  shouted  on  every  side,  and  the  vallies 
covered  over  with  corn  sent  forth  their  notes  of  re- 
joicing :  that  the  sun  and  the  moon  praised  him, 
and  the  stars  of  light  joined  in  the  solemn  adoration  ; 
that  the  voice  of  glory  to  God  was  heard  from  eve- 
ry mountain  and  from  every  water-fall ;  and  that 
all  nature,  animated  throughout  by  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  pervading  and  presiding  Deity,  burst 
into  one  loud  and  universal  song  of  gratulation. 
Would  not  a  strain  of  greater  loftiness  be  heard 
lo  ascend  from  those  regions  where, the  all-work- 
ing God  had  left  the  trices  ofiy'is  own  immensi- 
ty, than  from  the  tamer  a  <'  the  humbler  scenery 
of  an  ordinary  landscape  ?  Would  not  you  look  for 
1.  gladder  acclamation  from  the  fertile  field,  than 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  31 

from  the  arid  waste,  where  no  character  of  gran- 
deur made  up  for  the  barrenness  that  was  around 
jou  ?  Would  not  the  goodly  tree,  compassed  about 
with  the  glories  of  its  summer  foliage,  hft  up  an 
anthem  of  louder  gratitude,  than  the  lowly  shrub 
that  grew  beneath  it  ?  Would  not  the  flower,  from 
whose  leaves  every  hue  of  loveliness  was  reflected, 
send  forth  a  sweeter  rapture  than  the  russet  weed, 
which  never  drew  the  eye  of  any  admiring  passen- 
ger ?  And  in  a  word,  wherever  you  saw  the  tower- 
ing eminences  of  nature,  or  the  garniture  of  her 
more  rich  and  beauteous  adornments,  would  it  not 
be  there  that  you  looked  for  the  deepest  tones  of 
devotion,  or  there  for  the  tenderest  and  most  exqui- 
site of  its  melodies  ? 

There  is  both  the  sublime  of  character,  and  the 
beauteous  of  character,  exemplified  upon  man.  We 
have  the  one  in  that  high  sense  of  honour,  which  no 
interest  and  no  terror  can  seduce  from  any  of  its  ob- 
ligations. We  have  the  other  in  that  kindliness  of 
feeling,  which  one  look,  or  one  sigh,  of  imploring 
distress,  can  touch  into  liveliest  sympathy.  Only 
grant,  that  we  have  nothing  either  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  spirits,  or  in  the  structure  of  our  bodies, 
which  we  did  not  receive  ;  and  that  mind,  with  all 
its  varieties,  is  a?  much  the  product  of  a  creating 
hand,  as  matter  in  all  its  modifications  ;  and  then,  on 
the  face  of  human  society,  do  we  witness  all  the 
gradations  of  a  moral  scenery,  which  may  be  directly 
referred  to  the  operation  of  him  who  worket'i  all  in 


aa  CHALMERS^  DISCOURSES. 

all.     It  is  our  belief,  that,  as  to  any  effectual  sense 
of  God,  there  is  as  deep  a  slumber  throughout  the 
whole  of  this  world's  liv  ing  and  rational  generations, 
as  there  is  throughout  all  the  diversities  of  its  mute 
and  unconscious  materialism  ;  and  that   to  make 
our  alienated  spirits  again  alive  unto  the  Father  of 
them,  calls  for  as  distinct  and  as  miraculous  an  ex- 
ertion of  the  Divinity,  as  v/ould  need  to  be  put  forth 
in  the  act  of  turning  stones  into   the  children  of 
Abraham.     Conceive  this  to  be  done   then — and 
that  a  quickening  and  a  realizing  sense  of  the  Deity 
pervaded  all  the  men  of  our  species — and  that  each 
knew  how  to  refer  his  own  endowments,  with  an 
adequate  expression  of  gratitude  to  the  unseen  au- 
thor of  them — from  whom  we  ask,  of  all  these  va- 
rious individuals,  would  you  look  for  the  halleluiahs 
d^  devoutest  ecstacy  ?  Would  it  not  be  from  him 
whom  God  had  arrayed  in  the  splendour  of  nature's 
brightest  accomplishments  ?  Would  it  not  be  from 
him,  with  whose  constitutional  feelings  the  move- 
ments of  honour  and  benevolence  were  in  the  full- 
est harmony  ?  Would  it  not  be  from  him  whom  his 
Maker  had  cast  into  the  happiest  mould,  and  attem- 
pered into  sweetest  unison  with  all  that  was  kind, 
and  generous,  and  lovely,  and  ennobled  by  the  lof- 
tiest emotions,  and  raised  above  his  fellows  into  the 
finest  spectacle  of  all  that  was  graceful,  and  all  that 
was  manly  ?  Surely,  if  the  possession  of  these  mo- 
ralities be  just  another  theme  of  acknowledgment 
to  the  Lord  of  the  spirits  of  all  llesh,  then,  if  the  ac- 


CHALMERS*  DISCOURSES.  S3 

knowledgment  be  withheld,  and  these  moraUties 
have  taken  up  their  residence  in  the  bosom  of  him 
who  is  utterly  devoid  of  piety,  they  go  to  aggravate 
the  reproach  of  his  ingratitude  ;  and  to  prove,  that, 
of  all  the  men  upon  earth  who  are  far  from  God,  he 
stands  at  the  widest  distance,  he  remains  proof  a- 
gainst  the  weightiest  claims,  and  he,  of  the  dead  in 
trespasses  and  sins,  is  the  most  profoundly  asleep  to 
the  call  of  religion,  and  to  the  supremacy  of  its 
righteous  obligations. 

It  is  by  argument  such  as  this,  that  we  would  at- 
tempt to  convince  of  sin  those  who  have  a  rigteous- 
ness  that  is  without  godliness ;  and  to  prove,  that 
with  the  possession  of  such  things  as  are  pure,  and 
lovely,  and  honest,  and  of  good  report,  they  in  fact 
can  only  be  admitted  to  reconciliation  with  God,  on 
the  same  footing  with  the  most  worthless  and  prof- 
ligate of  the  species  ;  and  to  demonstrate,  that  they 
are  in  the  very  same  state  of  need  and  of  nakedness, 
and  are  therefore  children  of  wrath,  even  as  others  ; 
that  it  is  only  through  faith  in  the  preaching  of  the 
gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  that  they  can  be 
saved  ;  and  that,  unless  brought  down  from  the  de- 
lusive eminency  of  their  own  conscious  attainments, 
they  take  their  forgiveness  through  the  blood  of  the 
Redeemer,  and  their  sanctification  through  the  spi- 
rit which  IS  at  his  giving,  they  shall  obtain  no  part 
in  that  inheritance  which  is  incorruptible  and  unde- 
filed,  and  which  fadeth  not  away. 

But  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  does  something 


34  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

more  than  hold  out  a  refuge  to  the  guilty.  It  takes  all 
those  who  accept  of  its  overtures  under  its  supreme 
and  exclusive  direction.  It  keeps  hy  them  in  the 
way  of  counsel,  and  exhortation,  and  constant  su- 
perinteridance.  The  grace  which  it  reveals,  is  a 
grace  w^hich  not  merely  saves  all  men,  but  which 
teaches  all  men.  He  who  is  the  proposed  Saviour, 
also  claims  to  be  the  alone  master  of  those  who  put 
their  trust  in  him.  His  cognizance  extends  itself 
over  the  whole  line  of  their  history  ;  and  there  is 
not  an  affection  of  their  heart,  or  a  deed  of  their 
visible  conduct,  over  w^hich  he  does  not  assert  the 
right  of  an  authority  that  is  above  ail  control,  and 
that  refuses  all  rivalship. 

Now,  we  want  to  point  your  attention  to  a  dis- 
tinction which  obtains  between  one  set  and  another 
set  of  his  requirements.  By  the  former  we  are 
enjoined  to  practise  certain  virtues,  which,  separate- 
ly from  his  injunction  altogether,  are  in  great  de- 
mand, and  in  great  reverence  amongst  the  members 
of  society — such  as  compassion,  and  generosity, 
and  justice,  and  truth  •,  which,  independently  of  the 
religious  sanction  they  obtain  from  the  law  of  the 
Saviour,  are  in  themselves  so  lovely,  and  so  hon- 
ourable, and  of  such  good  report,  that  they  are  ever 
sure  to  carry  general  applause  along  with  them, 
and  thus  to  combine  both  the  characteristics  of  our 
text — that  he  who  in  these  things  serveth  Christ,  is 
both  acceptable  to  God,  and  approved  of  men. 

But  there  is  another  set  of  requirements,  where 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  35 

the  will  of  God,  instead  of  being  seconded  by  the 
applause  of  men,  is  utterly  at  variance  with  it. 
There  are  some  who  can  admire  the  generous  sac- 
rifices that  are  made  to  truth  or  to  friendship,  but 
who,  without  one  opposing  scruple,  abandon  them- 
selves to  all  the  excesses  of  riot  and  festivity,  and 
are  therefore  the  last  to  admire  the  puritanic  sobri- 
ety of  him  whom  they  cannot  tempt  to  put  his 
chastity  or  his  temperance  away  from  him  ;  though 
the  same  God,  who  bids  us.  lie  not  one  to  another, 
also  bids  us  keep  the  body  under  subjection,  and  to 
abstain  from  fleshly  lusts,  which  war  against  the 
soul.  Again,  there  are  some  in  whose  eyes  an  unvi- 
tiated  delicacy  looks  a  beauteous  and  an  interesting 
spectacle,  and  an  undeviating  self-control  looks  a 
manly  and  respectable  accomplishment  ;  but  who 
have  no  taste  in  themselves,  and  no  admiration  in 
others,  for  the  more  direct  exercises  of  religion  ;. 
and  who  positively  hate  the  strict  and  unbending 
preciseness  of  those  who  join  in  every  ordinance, 
and  on  every  returning  night  celebrate  the  praises 
of  God  in  their  family  ;  and  that,  though  the  heav- 
enly Lawgiver,  who  tells  us  to  live  righteously  and 
soberly,  tells  us  also  to  live  godly  in  the  present  evil 
world.  And  lastly,  there  are  some  who  have  not 
merely  a  toleration,  but  a  liking  for  all  the  decen- 
cies of  an  established  observation  ;  but  who,  with 
the  homage  they  pay  to  sabbaths  and  to  sacraments, 
nauseate  the  Christian  principle  in  the  supreme  and 
regenerating  vitality  of  its  influences  ;  \>ho,  under 


36  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

a  general  religiousness  of  aspect,  are  still  in  fact 
the  children  of  the  world — and  therefore  hate  the 
children  of  light  in  all  that  is  peculiar  and  essential- 
ly characteristic  of  that  high  designation  ;  who  un- 
derstand not  what  is  meant  by  having  our  conver- 
sation in  heaven  ;  and  utter  strangers  to  the  sepa- 
rated walk,  and  the  spiritual  exercises,  and  the 
humble  devotedness,  and  the  consecrated  affections^ 
of  the  new  creature  in  Jesus  Christ,  shrink  from 
them  altogether  as  from  the  extravagancies  of  a 
fanaticism  in  which  they  have  no  share,  and  with 
which  they  can  have  no  sympathy — and  all  this, 
though  the  same  scripture  which  prescribes  the  ex- 
ercises of  household  and  of  public  religion,  lays 
claim  to  an  undivided  authority  over  all  the  desires 
and  affections  of  the  soul  ;  and  will  admit  of  no 
compromise  between  God  and  the  w  orld ;  and  in- 
sists upon  an  utter  deadness  to  the  one,  and  a  most 
vehement  sensibility  to  the  other  ;  and  elevates  the 
standard  of  loyalty  to  the  Father  of  our  Spirits,  to 
the  lofty  pitch  of  loving  him  with  all  our  strength, 
and  of  doing  ail  things  to  his  glory. 

Let  these  examples  serve  to  impress  a  real  and 
experimental  distinction  which  obtains  between  two 
sets  of  virtues  :  between  those  which  possess  the 
single  ingredient  of  being  approved  by  God,  while 
they  want  the  ingredient  of  being  also  acceptable 
unto  men — and  those  which  possess  both  these  in- 
gredients, and  to  the  observance  of  which,  therefore, 
we  may  be  carried  by  a  regard  to  the  will  of  God, 


CHALxMERS'  DISCOURSES.  37 

without  any  reference  to  the  opinion  of  men — or 
by  a  regard  to  the  opinion  of  men,  without  any  re- 
ference to  the  will  of  God.  Among  the  first  class 
of  virtues  we  would  assign  a  foremost  place  to  alJ 
those  inward  and  spiritual  graces  which  enter 
into  the  obedience  of  the  affections — highly  ap- 
proved of  God,  but  not  at  all  acceptable  to  the 
general  taste,  or  carrying  along  with  them  the 
general  congeniality  of  the  world.  And  then, 
though  they  do  not  possess  the  ingredient  of  God's 
approbation  in  a  way  so  separate  and  unmixed, 
we  would  say  that  abstinence  from  profane  lan- 
guage, and  attendance  upon  church,  and  a  strict 
keeping  of  the  sabbath,  and  the  exercises  of  family 
worship,  and  the  more  rigid  degrees  of  sobriety, 
and  a  fearful  avoidance  of  every  encroachment  or^ 
temperance  or  chastity,  rank  more  appropriately 
with  the  first  than  with  the  second  class  of  virtues  \ 
for  though  there  be  many  in  society  who  have  no 
religion,  and  yet  to  whom  several  of  these  virtues 
are  acceptable,  yet  you  will  allow,  that  they  do  not 
convey  such  a  universal  popularity  along  with  them, 
as  certain  other  virtues  which  belong  indisputably 
to  the  second  class.  These  are  the  virtues  which 
have  a  more  obvious  and  immediate  bearing  on 
the  interest  of  society — such  as  the  truth  which  is 
punctual  to  all  its  engagements,  and  the  honour 
which  never  disappoints  the  confidence  it  has  inspi- 
red, and  the  compassion  which  cannot  look  unmo- 
ved at  any  of  the  symptoms  of  human  wretchedne^ss^ 

4 


38  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

and  the  generosity  which  scatters  unsparingly  a- 
round  it.  These  are  virtues  which  God  has  enjoin- 
ed, and  in  behalf  of  which  man  lifts  the  testimony 
of  a  loud  and  ready  admiration — virtues  in  which 
there  is  a  meeting  and  a  combining  of  both  the  pro- 
perties of  our  text ;  so  that  he  who  in  these  things 
serveth  Christ,  is  both  approved  of  God,  and  accep- 
table unto  men. 

Let  a  steady  hold  be  kept  of  this  distinction,  and 
it  will  be  found  capable  of  being  turned  to  a  very 
useful  application,  both  to  the  object  of  illustrating 
principle,  and  to  the  important  object  of  detecting 
character.  For  this  purpose,  let  us  carry  the  dis- 
tinction along  with  us,  and  make  it  subservient  to  the 
establishment  of  two  or  three  successive  observa- 
tions. 

First.  A  man  may  possess,  to  a  considerable  ex- 
tent, the  second  class  of  virtues,  and  not  possess  ^so 
much  as  one  iota  of  the  religious  principle  ;  and 
that,  among  other  reasons,  because  a  man  may  feel 
a  value  for  one  of  the  attributes  w^hich  belongs  to 
this  class  of  virtues,  and  have  no  value  whatever  for 
the  other  attribute.  If  justice  be  both  approved  by 
God,  and  acceptable  to  men,  he  may  on  the  latter 
property  alone,  be  induced  to  the  strictest  mainte- 
nance of  this  virtue — and  that  without  suirering  its 
former  property  to  have  any  practical  miliicnce 
whatever  on  any  of  his  habits,  or  any  of  his  deter- 
minations ;  and  the  same  w^ith  every  other  virtue 
l;>elonging  to  this  second  class.  As  residing  in  hi§ 
character,  there  may  not  be  the  ingredient  of  god- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOlJR.sL:^.  39 

liness  in  any  one  of  them.  He  may  be  well  report^ 
ed  on  account  of  them  by  men  •,  but  with  God  he 
may  lie  under  as  fearful  a  severity  of  reckoning,  as 
if  he  wanted  them  altogether.  Surely,  it  does  not 
go  to  alleviate  the  withdrawment  of  your  homage 
from  God,  that  you  have  such  an  homage  to  the 
opinion  of  men,  as  influences  you  to  do  things,  to 
the  doing  of  which  the  law  of  God  is  not  able  to  in- 
fluence you.  It  cannot  be  said  to  palliate  the  re- 
volting of  your  inclinations  from  the  Creator,  that 
you  have  transferred  them  all  to  the  creature  ;  and 
given  an  ascendancy  to  the  voice  of  human  repu- 
tation, which  you  have  refused  to  the  voice  and  au- 
thority of  your  Lawgiver  in  heaven.  Your  want  of 
subordination  to  him,  is  surely  not  made  up  by  the 
respectful  subordination  that  you  render  to  the  taste 
or  the  judgment  of  society.  And  in  addition  to  this, 
we  would  have  you  to  remember,  that  though  other 
constitutional  principles,  besides  a  regard  to  the  o- 
pinion  of  others,  helped  to  form  the  virtues  of  the 
second  class  upon  your  character ;  though  compas- 
sion,  and  generosity,  and  truth,  would  have  broken 
out  into  full  and  flourishing  display  upon  3'ou,  and 
that,  just  because  you  had  a  native  sensibility,  or  a 
native  love  of  rectitude  ;  yet,  if  the  first  ingredient 
be  wanting,  if  a  regard  to  the  approbation  of  God 
have  no  share  in  the  production  of  the  moral  ac- 
complishment— then  all  the  morality  you  can  pre- 
tend to,  is  of  as  little  religious  estimation,  and  is  as 
Utterly  disconnected  with  the  rewards  of  religion. 


\0  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

as  all  the  elegance  of  taste  you  can  pretend  to,  oi 
all  the  raptured  love  of  music  you  can  pretend  to,  or 
all  the  vigour  and  dexterity  of  bodily  exercise  you 
can  pretend  to.  All  these,  in  reference  to  the 
great  question  of  immortality,  profit  but  little  ;  and 
it  is  godliness  alone  that  is  profitable  unto  all  things. 
It  is  upon  this  consideration  that  we  would  have 
you  to  open  your  eyes  to  the  nakedness  of  your  condi- 
tion in  the  sight  of  God  ;  to  look  to  the  full  weight 
ofthe  charge  that  he  may  prefer  against  you  ;  to  es- 
timate the  fearful  extent  of  the  deficiency  under 
which  you  labour ;  to  resist  the  delusive  whispering 
of  peace,  when  there  is  no  peace;  and  to  under- 
stand, that  the  wrath  of  God  abideth  on  every 
child  of  nature,  however  rich  he  may  be  in  the  vir* 
lues  and  accomplishments  of  nature. 

But  again.  This  view  ofthe  distinction  between 
the  two  sets  of  virtues,  will  serve  to  explain  how  it 
is,  that  in  the  act  of  turning  unto  God,  the  one  class 
of  them  appears  to  gather  more  copiously,  and  more 
conspicuously,  upon  the  front  of  a  renewed  charac- 
ter, than  the  other  class  ;  how  it  is,  that  the  former 
wear  a  more  unequivocal  aspectof  religiousness  than 
the  latter  ;  how  it  is,  that  an  air  of  gravity,  and  de- 
cency, and  seriousness,  looks  to  be  more  in  alhance 
with  sanctity,  than  the  air  either  of  open  integrity, 
or  of  smiling  benevolence  ;  how  it  is,  that  the  most 
ostensible  change  in  the  habit  of  a  converted  profli- 
gate, is  that  change  in  virtue  of  which  he  M^thdraws 
himself  from  the  companions  of  his  licentiousness  ; 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  41 

a'nd  that  to  renounce  the  dissipations  of  his  fbrmcf 
life,  stands  far  more  frequently,  or,  at  least,  far  more 
visibly,  associated  with  the  act  of  putting  on  Chris- 
tianity, than  to  renounce  the  dishonesties  of  his  for- 
mer life.  It  is  true,  that,  by  the  law  of  the  gospel, 
he  is  laid  as  strictly  under  the  authority  of  the  com- 
-mandment  to  live  righteously,  as  of  the  command- 
ment to  live  soberly.  But  there  is  a  compound 
character  in  those  virtues  which  are  merely  social ; 
and  the  presence  of  the  one  ingredient  serves  to 
throw  into  the  shade,  or  to  disguise  altogether,  the 
presence  of  the  other  ingredient.  There  is  a  great- 
er number  of  irreligious  men,  who  are  at  the  same 
time  just  in  their  dealings,  than  tliere  is  of  irreligious 
men,  who  are  at  the  same  time  pure  and  temperate 
in  their  habits  ;  and  therefore  it  is,  that  justice,  even 
-the  most  scrupulous,  is  not  so  specifical,  and,  of 
course,  not  so  satisfying  a  mark  of  religion,  as  is  a 
sobriety  that  is  rigid  and  inviolable.  And  all  this 
helps  to  explain  how  it  is,  that  when  a  man  comes 
under  the  power  of  religion,  to  abandon  the  levi- 
ties of  his  past  conduct  is  an  event  which  stands  far 
more  noticeably  out  upon  him,  at  this  stage  of  his 
history,  than  to  abandon  the  iniquities  of  his  past 
conduct ;  that  the  most  characteristic  transforma- 
tion which  takes  place  at  such  a  time,  is  a  transfor- 
mation from  thoughtlessness,  and  from  licentiouf 
gaiety,  and  from  the  festive  indulgences  of  those 
with  whojn  he  wont  to  run  to  all  those  excesses  of 
riot,  of  which  the  Apostle  says,  that  they  which  dv 

4  * 


42  CHALMERS'  DtSCOlJRSi::^, 

these  things  shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God  ; 
for  even  then,  and  in  the  very  midst  of  all  his  impie- 
ty, he  may  have  heen  kind-hearted,  and  there  might 
be  no  room  upon  his  person  for  a  visible  transfor- 
mation from  inhumanity  of  character  ;  even  then, 
he  may  have  been  honourable,  and  there  might  be 
as  little  room  for  a  visible  transformation  from  frau- 
dulency  of  character. 

Thirdly.  Nothing  is  more  obvious  than  the  an- 
tipathy that  is  felt  by  a  certain  class  of  religionists 
against  the  preaching  of  good  works  ;  and  the  an- 
tipathy is  assuredly  well  and  warrantably  grounded, 
when  it  is  such  a  preaching  as  goes  to  reduce  the 
importance,  or  to  infringe  upon  the  simplicity,  of 
the  great  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  But  a- 
long  with  this,  may  there  not  be  remarked  the  toler- 
ation with  which  they  will  listen  to  a  discourse  up- 
on one  set  of  good  works,  and  the  evident  coldness 
and  dislike  with  which  they  listen  to  a  discourse  on 
another  set  of  them  ;  how  a  pointed  remonstrance 
against  sabbath  breaking  sounds  in  their  ears,  as  if 
more  in  character  from  the  pulpit,  than  a  pointed 
remonstrance  against  the  commission  of  theft,  or  the 
speaking  of  evil ;  howaneulogium  on  the  observance 
of  family  worship  feels,  in  their  taste,  to  be  more 
impregnated  with  the  spirit  of  sacredness  than  an 
eulogium  on  the  virtues  of  the  shop,  or  of  the  mar- 
ket-place ;  and  that  while  the  one  is.  approven  of 
ns  having  about  it  the  solemn  and  the  suitable  cha- 
racteristics of  godliness,  the  other  is  stigmatized  as 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  43 

a  piece  of  barren,  heartless,  heathenish,  and  philo- 
sophic morality  ;  now,  this  antipathy  to  the  preach- 
ing of  the  latter  species  of  good  works,  has  some- 
thing peculiar  in  it.  It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  it 
arises  from  a  sensitive  alarm  about  the  stability  of 
the  doctrine  of  justification  ;  for  let  it  be  observed, 
that  this  doctrine  stands  opposed  to  the  merit  not  of 
one  particular  class  of  performances,  but  to  the 
merit  of  all  performances  whatsoever.  It  is  just  as 
unscriptural  a  detraction  from  the  great  truth  of 
salvation  by  faith,  to  rest  our  acceptance  with  God 
on  the  duties  of  prayer,  or  of  rigid  sabbath  keeping, 
or  of  strict  and  untainted  sobriety,  as  to  rest  it  on 
the  punctual  fulfilment  of  all  your  bargains,  and  on 
the  extent  of  your  manifold  liberalities.  It  is  not, 
then,  a  mere  zeal  about  the  great  article  of  justifica- 
tion which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  that  peculiar  aver- 
sion that  is  felt  towards  a  sermon  on  some  social  or 
humane  accomplishment  ;  and  that  is  not  felt  to- 
wards a  sermon  on  sober-mindedness,  or  a  sermon 
on  the  observation  of  the  sacrament,  or  a  sermon  on 
any  of  those  performances  which  bear  a  more  direct 
and  exclusive  reference  to  God.  We  shall  find  the 
explanation  of  this  phenomenon,  which  often  pre- 
sents itself  in  the  religious  world,  in  that  distinction 
of  which  we  have  just  required  tliat  it  should  be 
kept  in  steady  hold,  and  followed  into  its  various 
applications.  The  aversion  in  (piestion  is  often,  in 
fact,  a  well  founded  aversion,  to  a  topic,  which, 
(hough  religious  in  the  matter  of  it,  may,  from  the 


44  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

way  ill  which  it  is  proposed,  be  altogether  secular  in 
the  principle  of  it.  It  is  resistance  to  what  is  deem- 
ed, and  justly  deemed,  an  act  of  usurpation  on  the 
part  of  certain  virtues,  which,  when  unanimated  by 
a  sentiment  of  godliness,  are  entitled  to  no  place 
whatever  in  the  ministrations  of  the  gospel  of  Christ. 
It  proceeds  from  a  most  enhghtened  fear,  lest  that 
should  be  held  to  make  up  •  the  whole  of  religion, 
which  is  in  fact  utterly  devoid  of  the  spirit  of  reli- 
gion ;  and  from  a  true  and  tender  apprehension, 
lest,  on  the  possession  of  certain  accomplishments, 
which  secure  a  fleeting  credit  throughout  the  little 
hour  of  this  world's  history,  deluded  man  should 
look  forward  to  his  eternity  with  hope,  and  upward 
to  his  God  with  complacency — while  he  carries  not 
on  his  forehead  one  vestic^e  of  the  character  of  heav- 
en,  one  lineament  of  the  aspect  of  godliness. 

And  lastly.  The  first  class  of  virtues  bear  the 
character  of  religiousness  more  strongly,  just  be- 
cause they  bear  that  character  more  singly*  The 
people  who  are  without,  might,  no  doubt,  see  in  ev- 
ery real  christian  the  virtues  of  the  second  class  al- 
so ;  but  these  virtues  do  not  belong  to  them  pecul- 
iarly and  exclusively.  For  though  it  be  true,  that 
every  religious  man  must  be  honest,  the  converse 
does  not  follow,  that  every  honest  man  must  be  re- 
ligious. And  it  is  because  the  social  accomplish- 
ments do  not  form  the  specific,  that  neither  do  they 
form  the  most  prominent,  and  distinguishing  marks 
of  Christianity.     They  may  also  be  r>€cognized  ^^' 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  45 

features  in  the  character  of  men,  who  utterly  repu- 
diate the  whole  style  and  doctrine  of  the  New-Tes- 
tament 5  and  hence  a  very  prevalent  impression  in 
society,  that  the  faith  of  the  gospel  docs  not  bear 
so  powerfully  and  so  directly  on  the  relative  virtues 
of  human  conduct.     A  few  instances  of  hypocrisy 
amongst  the  more  serious  professors  of  our  faith, 
serve  to  rivet  the  impression,  and  to  give  it  perpe- 
tuity in  the  world.     One  single  example,  indeed, 
of  sanctimonious  duplicity,  will  suffice,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  many,  to  cover  the  whole  of  vital  and  or- 
thodox Christianity  with  disgrace.     The  report  of 
it  will  be  borne  in  triumph  amongst  the  companies 
of  the  irreligious.     The  man  who  pays  no  homage 
to  sabbaths  or  to  sacraments,  will  be  contrasted  in 
the  open,  liberal,  and  manly  style,  of  all  his  trans- 
actions, with  the  low  cunning  of  this  drivelling  me- 
thodistical  pretender ;  and  the  loud  laugh  of  a  mul- 
titude of  scorners,  will  give  a  force  and  a  swell  to 
this  public  outcry  against  the  whole  character  of 
the  sainthood. 

Now,  this  delusion  on  the  part  of  the  unbelieving 
world  is  very  natural,  and  ought  not  to  excite  our 
astonishment.  We  are  not  surprised,  from  the  rea- 
sons already  adverted  to,  that  the  truth,  and  the 
justice,  and  the  humanity,  and  the  moral  loveliness, 
which  do  in  fact  belong  to  every  new  creature  in 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  should  miss  their  observa- 
tion ;  or  at  least,  fail  to  be  recognized  among  the 
other  more  obvious  characteristics  inlo  which  be- 


46  eHALMERS'  DISCOURSE::^. 

lievers  have  been  translated  by  the  faith  of  the  go-a- 
pel.  But  on  this  very  subject  there  is  a  tendency 
to  delusion  on  the  part  of  the  disciples  of  the  faith. 
They  need  to  be  reminded  of  the  solemn  and  indis- 
pensable rehgiousness  of  the  second  class  of  vir- 
tues. They  need  to  be  told,  that  though  these 
virtues  do  possess  the  one  ingredient  of  being  ap- 
proved by  men,  and  may,  on  this  single  account,  be 
found  to  reside  in  the  characters  of  those  who  live 
without  God — yet,  that  they  also  possess  the  other 
ingredient  of  being  acceptable  unto  God  ,  and,  on 
this  latter  account,  should  be  made  the  subjects  of 
their  most  strenuous  cultivation.  They  must  not 
lose  sight  of  the  one  ingredient  in  the  other ;  or 
stigmatize,  as  so  many  fruitless  and  insignificant 
moralities,  those  virtues  which  enter  as  component 
parts  into  the  service  of  Christ ;  so  that  he  who  in 
these  things  serveth  Christ,  is  both  acceptable  to 
God,  and  approved  by  men.  They  must  not  ex- 
pend all  their  warmth  on  the  high  and  pecuhar 
doctrine  of  the  New  Testament,  while  they  offer  a 
cold  and  reluctant  admission  to  the  practical  duties 
of  the  New^  Testament.  The  Apostle  has  bound 
the  one  to  the  other  by  a  tie  of  immediate  connex- 
ion. Wherefore,  lie  not  one  to  another,  as  ye  have 
put  off  the  old  man  and  his  deeds,  and  put  on  the 
new  man,  which  is  formed  after  the  image  of  God, 
in  righteousness  and  true  holiness.  Here  the  very 
obvious  and  popular  accomplishment  of  truth  is 
grafted  on  the  very  peculiar  doctnue  of  regenera* 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  47 

lion  :  and  you  altogether  mistake  the  kind  of  trans- 
forming influence  which  the  faith  of  the  gospel 
brings  along  with  it,  if  you  think  that  uprightness 
of  character  does  not  emerge  at  the  same  time  with 
godliness  of  character ;  or  that  the  virtues  of  soci- 
ety do  not  form  upon  the  believer  into  as  rich  and 
varied  an  assemblage,  as  do  the  virtues  of  the  sanc- 
tuary ;  or  that,  while  he  puts  on  those  graces 
which  are  singly  acceptable  to  God,  he  falls  behind 
in  any  of  those  graces  which  are  both  acceptable  to 
God,  and  approved  of  men. 

-  Let,  therefore,  every  pretender  to  Christianity 
vindicate  this  assertion  by  his  own  personal  history 
in  the  world.  Let  him  not  lay  his  godliness  aside, 
when  he  is  done  with  the  morning  devotion  of  his 
family  ;  but  carry  it  abroad  with  him,  and  make  it 
his  companion  and  his  guide  through  the  whole  bu- 
siness of  the  day ;  always  bearing  in  his  heart  the 
sentiment,  that  thou  God  seest  me  ;  and  remem- 
bering, that  there  is  not  one  hour  that  can  flow,  or 
one  occasion  that  can  cast  up,  where  his  law  is  not 
present  with  some  imperious  exaction  or  other. — 
It  is  false,  that  the  principle  of  Christian  sanctiti- 
cation  possesses  no  influence  over  the  familiarities 
of  civil  and  ordinary  life.  It  is  altogether  false, 
that  godliness  is  a  virtue  of  such  a  lofty  and  mo- 
nastic order,  as  to  hold  its  dominion  only  over  the 
solemnities  of  worship,  or  over  the  solitudes  of 
prayer  and  spiritual  contemplation.  If  it  be  sub- 
stantially a  grace  within  us  at  all,  it  will  give  a  di- 


48  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

rectioii  and  a  colour  to  the  whole  of  our  path  in  st>- 
ciety.  There  is  not  one  conceivable  transaction, 
amongst  all  the  manifold  varieties  of  human  employ- 
ment, which  it  is  not  fitted  to  animate  by  its  spirit. 
There  is  nothing  that  meets  us  too  homely,  to  be 
beyond  the  reach  of  obtaining,  from  its  influence, 
the  stamp  of  something  celestial.  It  offers  to  take 
the  whole  man  under  its  ascendency,  and  to  subor- 
dinate all  his  movements  :  nor  does  it  hold  the  place 
which  rightfully  belongs  to  it,  till  it  be  vested  with 
a  presiding  authority  over  the  entire  system  of  hu- 
man affairs.  And  therefore  it  is,  that  the  preacher 
is  not  bringing  down  Christianity — he  is  only  sending 
it  abroad  over  the  field  of  its  legitimate  operation, 
when  he  goes  with  it  to  your  counting-houses,  and 
there  rebukes  every  selfish  inclination  that  would 
carry  you  ever  so  little  within  the  limits  of  fraudu- 
1  ency  ;  when  he  enters  into  your  chambers  of  agency, 
and  there  detects  the  character  of  falsehood,  which 
lurks  under  all  the  plausibility  of  your  multiplied 
and  excessive  charges  ;  when  he  repairs  to  the 
crowded  market-place,  and  pronounces  of  every 
baro^ain,  over  which  truth,  in  all  the  strictness  of 
quakerism,  has  not  presided,  that  it  is  tainted  with 
moral  evil ;  when  he  looks  into  your  shops,  and,  in 
listening  to  the  contest  of  argument  between  him 
who  magnifies  his  article,  and  him  who  pretends  to 
undervalue  it,  he  calls  it  the  contest  of  avarice, 
broken  loose  from  the  restraints  of  integrity.  He 
is  not,  by  all  this,  vulgarizing  religion,  or  giving  it 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  49 

the  hue  and  the   character  of  earthliness.     He  is 
only  asserting  the  might  and  the  universality  of  its 
sole  pre-eminence  over  man.     And  therefore  it  is, 
that  if  possible  to  solemnize  his  hearers  to  the  prac- 
tice of  simplicity  and  godly  sincerity  in  their  deal- 
ings, he  would  try  to  make  the  odiousness  of  sin 
stand  visibly  out  on  every  shade  and  modification 
of  dishonesty  ;  and  to  assure  them  that  if  there  be 
a  place  in  our  world,  where  the  subtle  evasion,  and 
the  dexterous  imposition,   and  the  sly  but  gainful 
concealment,  and  the  report  which  misleads  an  in- 
quirer, and  the  gloss  which  tempts  the  unwary  pur- 
chaser— are  not   only  currently  practised  in  the 
walks  of  merchandise,  but,  when  not  carried  forward 
to  the  glare  and  the  literality  of  falsehood,  are  be- 
held  with  general  connivance  ;  if  there  be  a  place 
where  the  sense  of  morality  has  thus  fallen,  and  all 
the  nicer  delicacies  of  conscience  are  overborne  in 
the  keen  and  ambitious  rivalry  of  men  hasting  to  be 
rich,  and  wholly  given  over  to  the  idolatrous  ser- 
vice of  the  God  of  this  world — then  that  is  the  place, 
the  smoke  of  whose  iniquity  rises  before  Him  who 
sitteth  on  the  throne,  in  a  tide  of  deepest  and  most 
revolting  abomination.  . 

And  here  we  have  to  complain  of  the  public  in- 
justice that  is  done  to  Christianity,  when  one  of  its 
ostentatious  professors  has  acted  the  hypocrite,  and 
stands  in  disgraceful  exposure  before  the  eyes  of  the 
world.  We  advert  to  the  readiness  with  which  this 
is  turned  into  a  matter  of  general  impeachment, 

5 


.0  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

against  every  appearance  of  seriousness  ;  and  how 
loud  the  exclamation  is  against  the  religion   of  all 
who  signalize  themselves  ;  and  that,  if  the  aspect  of 
godliness  be  so  very  decided  as  to  become  an  aspect 
of  peciiliarit},  then  is  this  peculiarity  converted  in- 
to a  ground   of  distrust  and  suspicion  against  the 
bearer  of  it.     Now,  it  so  happens,  that,  in  the  midst 
of  this  world  lying  in  wickedness,  a  man,  to  be  a 
Christian  at  all,  must  signalize  himself.     Neither  is 
he  in  a  way  of  salvation,  unless  he  be  one  of  a  very 
pecuhar  people  ;  nor  would  we  precipitately  con- 
sign him  to  discredit,  even  though  the  peculiarity  be 
so  very  glaring  as  to  provoke  the  charge  of  method- 
ism.     But,  instead  of  making  one  man^s  hypocrisy 
act  as  a  drawback  upon  the  reputation  of  a  thousand, 
we  submit,  if  it  would  not  be  a  fairer  and  more  phi- 
losophical procedure,  just  to  betake  one's-self  to 
the  method  of  induction — to  make  a  walking  survey 
over  the  town,  and  record  an  inventory  of  all  the 
men  in  it  who  are  so  very  far  gone  as  to  have  the 
voice  of  psalms  in  their  family  ;  or  as  to  attend  the 
meetings  of  fellowship  for  prayer  ;  or  as  scrupulous- 
ly to  abstain  from  all  that  is  questionable  in  the  a- 
musements  of  the  world  ;  or  as,  by  any  other  mark- 
ed and  visible  symptom  whatever,  to  stand  out  to 
ij;eneral  observation  as  the  members  of  a  saintly  and 
separated  society.     We  know,  that  even   of  such 
there  are  a  few,  who,  if  Paul  were  alive,  would  move 
him  to  weep  for  the  reproach  they  bring  upon  his 
master.     But  we  also  know,  that  the  blind  and  im- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  jl 

petuous  world  exaggerates  the  few  into  the  many ; 
inverts  the  process  of  atonement  altogether,  by 
laying  the  sins  of  oae  man  upon  the  multitude  ; 
looks  at  their  general  aspect  of  sanctit} ,  and  is  so 
engrossed  with  this  single  expression  of  character, 
as  to  be  insensible  to  the  noble  uprightness,  and  the 
tender  humanity  with  which  this  sanctity  is  associ- 
ated. And  therefore  it  is,  that  we  oiler  the  asser- 
tion, and  challenge  all  to  its  most  thorough  and 
searching  investigation,  that  the  Christianity  of  these 
people  which  many  think  does  nothing  but  cant,  and 
profess,  and  run  after  ordinances,  has  augmented 
their  honesties  and  their  liberalities,  and  that,  ten- 
fold beyond  the  average  character  of  society  ;  that 
these  are  the  men  we  oftenest  meet  with  in  the 
mansions  of  poverty — and  who  look  with  the  most 
wakeful  eye  over  all  the  sufferings  and  necessities 
of  our  species — and  who  open  their  hand  most  wide- 
ly in  behalf  of  the  imploring  and  the  friendless — and 
to  whom,  in  spite  of  all  their  mockery,  the  men  of 
the  world  are  sure,  in  the  negociations  of  business, 
to  award  the  readiest  confidence — and  who  sustain 
the  most  splendid  part  in  all  those  great  movements 
of  philanthropy  which  bear  on  the  general  interests 
of  mankind — and  who,  with  their  eye  full  upon  e- 
ternity,  scatter  the  most  abundant  blessings  over  the 
fleeting  pilgrimage  of  time — and  who,  while  they 
hold  their  conversation  in  heaven,  do  most  enrich 
the  earth  we  tread  upon,  with  all  those  virtues 
which  secure  enjoyment  to  families,  and  uphold  the 
order  and  prosperity  of  the  commonwealth. 


DISCOURSE  III. 

THE  POWEa  OF  SELFISHNESS  IN  PROMOTING  THE 
HONESTIES  OF  MERCANTILE  INTERCOURSE: 


''  And  if  you  do  good  to  them  which  do  good  to  you,  what  thank 
have  ye  ?  for  sinners  also  do  even  the  same." — Luke  vi.  33. 

It  is  to  be  remarked  of  many  of  those  duties,  the 
performance  of  which  confers  the  least  distinction 
upon  an  individual,  that  they  are  at  the  same  time 
the  very  duties,  the  violation  of  which  would  confer 
upon  him  the  largest  measure  of  obloquy  and  dis- 
grace. Truth  and  justice  do  not  serve  to  elevate  a 
man  so  highly  above  the  average  morality  of  his 
species,  as  would  generosity,  or  ardent  friendship, 
or  devoted  and  disinterested  patriotism.  The  for- 
mer are  greatly  more  common  than  the  latter  ;  and, 
on  that  account,  the  presence  of  them  is  not  so 
calculated  to  signalize  the  individual  to  whom  they 
belong.  But  that  is  one  account,  also,  why  the  ab- 
sence of  them  would  make  him  a  more  monstrous 
exception  to  the  general  run  of  character  in  society. 
And,  accordingly,  while  it  is  true,  that  there  are 
more  men  of  integrity  in  the  world,  than  there  are 
men  of  very  wide  and  liberal  beneficence — it  is  also 
truCj  that  one  act  of  falsehood,  or  one  act  of  dis- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  5S 

lionesty,  would  stamp  a  far  more  burning  infamy  ou 
the  name  of  a  transgressor,  than  any  defect  in  those 
more  heroic  charities,  and  extraordinary  virtues,  of 
which  humanity  is  capable. 

So  it  is  far  more  disgraceful  not  to  be  just  to  a- 
nother,  than  not  to  be  kind  to  him  ;  and,  at  the  same 
time,  an  act  of  kindness  may  be  held  in  higher  pos- 
itive estimation  than  an  act  of  justice.     Th"  one  is 
my  right — nor  is  there  any  call  for  the  homage  of  a 
particular  testimony  when  it  is  rendered.      The 
other  is    additional  to  my  right — the   offering  of  a 
spontaneous  good  will,  which  I  had  no  title  to  exact ; 
and  which,  therefore,  when  rendered  to  me,  excites 
in  my  bosom  the  cordiahty  of  a  warmer  acknowl- 
edgment.    And  yet,  our  Saviour,  who  knew  what 
was  in  man,  saw,  that  much  of  the  apparent  kind- 
ness of  nature,  was  resolvable  into  the  real  sellish- 
ness  of  nature  ;  that  much  of  the  good  done  unto 
others,  was  done  in  the  hope  that  these  others  would 
do  something  again.     And,  we  believe  it  would  be 
found  by  an  able  analyst  of  the  human  character, 
that  this  was  the  secret  but  substantial  principle  of 
many  of  the  civihties  and  hospitalities  of  ordinary  in- 
tercourse— that  if  there  were  no  expectation  either 
of  a  return  in  kind,  or  of  a  return  in  gratitude,  or 
of  a  return  in  popularity,  many  of  \ht  sweetening 
and  cementing  virtues  of  a  neighbourhood  would  be 
practically  done  away — all  serving  to  prove,  that  a 
multitude  of  virtues,  which,  in  effect,  promoted  the 
comfort  and  interest  of  others,  were  tainted  in  ^)rin 

5  * 


54  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

ciple  by  a  latent  regard  to  one's  own  interest ;  and 
thatthus  being  the  fellowship  of  those  who  did  good, 
either  as  a  return  for  the  good  done  unto  them,  or 
who  did  good  in  hope  of  such  a  return,  it  might  be, 
in  fact,  what  our  Saviour  characterizes  it  in  the 
text — the  fellowship  of  sinners. 

But  if  to  do  that  which  is  unjust,  is  still  more  dis- 
graceful than  not  to  do  that  which  is  kind,  it  would 
prove  more  strikingly  than  before,  how  deeply  sin 
had  tainted  the  moral  constitution  of  our  species — 
could  it  be  shown,  that  the  great  practical  restraint 
on  the  prevalence  of  this  more  disgraceful  thing  in 
society,  is  the  tie  of  that  common  seltishness  which 
actuates  and  characterizes  all  its  members.  It 
were  a  curious  but  important  question,  were  it  ca- 
pable of  being  resolved — if  men  did  not  feel  it  their 
interest  to  be  honest,  how  much  of  the  actual  doings 
of  honesty  would  still  be  kept  up  in  the  world  ?  It 
is  our  own  opinion  of  the  nature  of  man,  that  it  has 
its  honourable  feelings,  and  its  instinctive  principles 
of  rectitude,  and  its  constitutional  love  of  truth  and 
of  integrity  ;  and  that,  on  the  basis  of  these,  a  cer- 
tain portion  of  uprightness  would  remain  amongst 
us,  without  the  aid  of  any  prudence,  or  any  calcula- 
tion whatever.  All  this  we  have  fully  conceded  ; 
and  have  already  attempted  to  demonstrate,  that, 
in  spite  of  it,  the  character  of  man  is  thoroughly 
pervaded  by  the  very  essence  of  sinfulness ;  be- 
cause, with  all  the  native  virtues  which  adorn  it, 
there  adheres  to  it  that  foulest  of  all  spiritual  defor- 


y 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.*      Jjyr,  5$ 

mities — unconcern  about  God,  and  even  antipathy 
to  God.  It  has  been  argued  against  the*orthodox 
doctrine  of  the  universahty  of  human  corruption, 
that  even  without  the  sphere  of  the  operation  of  the 
gospel,  there  do  occur  so  many  engaging  specimens 
of  worth  and  benevolence  in  society.  The  reply 
is,  that  this  maybe  no  deduction  from  the  doctrine 
whatever,  but  be  even  an  aggravation  of  it — should 
the  very  men  who  exemplify  so  much  of  what  is  a- 
miable,  carry  in  their  hearts  an  indifference  to  the 
will  of  that  Being  who  thus  hath  formed,  and  thus 
hath  embellished  them.  But  it  would  be  a  heavy 
deduction  indeed,  not  from  the  doctrine,  but  from 
its  hostile  and  opposing  argument,  could  it  be  shown, 
that  the  vast  majority  of  all  equitable  dealing  a- 
mongst  men,  is  performed,  not  on  the  principle  of 
honour  at  elII,  but  on  the  principle  of  selfishness — 
that  this  is  the  soil  upon  which  the  honesty  of  the 
world  mainly  flourishes,  and  is  sustained  ;  that, 
were  the  connexion  dissolved  between  justice  to 
others  and  our  own  particular  advantage,  this  would 
go  very  far  to  banish  the  observation  of  justice  from 
the  earth  ;  that,  generally  speaking,  men  are  hon- 
est, not  because  they  are  lovers  of  God,  and  not 
even  because  they  are  lovers  of  virtue,  but  because 
they  are  lovers  of  their  own  selves  ;  insomuch,  that 
if  it  were  possible  to  disjoin  the  good  of  self  alto- 
gether from  the  habit  of  doing  what  was  fair,  as 
well  as  from  the  habit  of  doing  what  was  kind  to  the 
people  around  us,  this  would  not  merely  isolate  the 


r- 


06  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

children  of  men  from  each  other,  in  respect  of  tht 
obhgations  of  beneficence,  but  it  would  arm  them 
into  an  undisguised  hostility  against  each  other,  in 
respect  of  their  rights.  The  mere  disinterested 
principle  would  set  up  a  feeble  barrier,  indeed,  a- 
gahist  a  desolating  tide  of  selfishness,  now  set  loose 
from  the  consideration  of  its  own  advantage.  The 
genuine  depravity  of  the  human  heart  would  burst 
forth  and  show  itself  in  its  true  characters  ;  and 
the  world  in  which  we  live  be  transformed  into  a 
scene  of  unblushing  fraud,  of  open  and  lawless  de- 
predation. 

And,  perhaps,  after  all,  the  best  w  ay  of  arriving 
practically  at  the  solution  of  this  question  would  be, 
not  by  a  formal  induction  of  particular  cases,  but  by 
committing  the  matter  to  the  gross  and  general  expe- 
rience of  those  who  are  most  conversant  in  the  af- 
fairs of  business.  There  is  a  sort  of  undefineable 
impression  you  ail  have  upon  this  subject,  on  the 
justness  of  which  however,  we  are  disposed  to  lay 
a  very  considerable  stress — an  impression  gathered 
out  of  the  mass  of  the  recollections  of  a  whole  life 
— an  impression  founded  on  what  you  may  have 
observed  in  the  history  of  your  own  doings — a  kind 
of  tact  that  you  have  acquired  as  the  fruit  of  your 
repeated  intercourse  with  men,  and  of  the  manifold 
transactions  that  you  have  had  with  them,  and  ot 
the  number  of  times  in  which  you  have  been  per- 
sonally implicated  with  the  play  of  humai  passions, 
and  human  interests.     It  is  our  own   couviction, 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  5T 

that  a  well  exercised  merchant  could  cast  a  more 
intelligent  glance  at  this  question,  than  a  well  ex- 
ercised metaphysician  ;  and'  therefore  do  we  sub- 
mit its  decision  to  those  of  you  who  have  hazard- 
ed most  largely,  and  most  frequently,  on  the  faith 
of  agents,  and  customers,  and  distant  correspond- 
ents. We  know  the  fact  of  a  very  secure  and  well 
warranted  confidence  in  the  honesty  of  others,  be- 
ing widely  prevalent  amongst  you  ;  and  that,  were 
it  not  for  this,  all  the  interchanges  of  trade  would 
be  suspended  ;  and  that  confidence  is  the  very  soul 
and  hfe  of  commercial  activity ;  and  it  is  delightful 
to  think,  how  thus  a  man  can  suffer  all  the  wealth 
which  belongs  to  him  to  depart  from  under  his  eye, 
and  to  traverse  the  mightiest  oceans  and  continents 
of  our  world,  and  to  pass  into  the  custody  of  men 
whom  he  never  saw.  And  it  is  a  sublime  homage, 
one  should  think,  to  the  honourable  and  high-mind- 
ed principles  of  our  nature,  that,  under  their  guar- 
dianship the  adverse  hemispheres  of  the  globe 
should  be  bound  together  in  safe  and  profitable 
merchandise ;  and  that  thus  one  should  sleep  with 
a  bosom  undisturbed  by  jealousy,  in  Britain,  who 
has  all,  and  more  than  all  his  property  treasured  in 
the  warehouses  of  India — and  that,  just  because 
there  he  knows  there  is  vigilance  to  defend  it,  and 
activity  to  dispose  of  it;  and  truth  to  account  for  it, 
and  all  those  trusty  virtues  which  ennoble  the  char- 
acter of  man  to  shield  it  from  injury,  and  send  it 


58  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

Lack  again  in  an  increasing  tide  of  opulence  to  his 
door. 

There  is  no  question,  then,  as  to  the  fact  of  a 
very  extended  practical  honesty,  between  man  and 
man,  in  their  intercourse  with  each  other.     The 
only  question  is,  as  to  the  reason  of  the  fact.     Why 
is  it,  that  he  whom  you  have   trusted  acquits  him- 
self of  his  trust  with  such  correctness  and  tideiity  ? 
Whether  is  his  mind,   in  so  doing^,   most  set  upon 
your  interest  or  upon  his  own  ?  Whether  is  it  be- 
cause he  seeks  your  advantage  in  it,  or  because  he 
finds  in  it  his  own  advantage  ?  Tell  us   to  which  of 
the  two  concerns  he  is  most  tremblingly  alive — to 
your  property,  or  to  his  own  character  /  and  wheth- 
er, upon  the  last  of  these  feelings,  he  may  not  be 
more  forcibly  impelled  to  equitable  dealing  than 
upon  the  first  of  them  ?   We  well  know,  that  there 
is  room  enough  in  his  bosom  for  both  ;    but  to  de- 
termine how  powerfully  selfishness  is  blended  with 
the  punctualities  and  the  integrities  of  business,  let 
us  ask  those  who  can  speak  most  soundly  and  ex- 
perimentally on  the  subject,  what  would  be  the  re- 
sult, if  the  element  of  selfishness  were  so  detached 
from   the  operations  of  trade,  that  there  was   no 
such  thing  as  a  man  suffering  in  his  prosperity,  be- 
cause he  suffered  in  his  good  name  ;  that  there  w^as 
no  such  thing  as  a  desertion  of  custom  and  employ- 
ment coming  upon  the  back  of  a  blasted  credit,  and 
a  tainted  reputation  ;  in  a  word,  if  the  only  securi- 
ty we  bad  of  man  was  his  principles,  and  that  hi*; 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  59 

interest  flourished  and  augmented  just  as  surely 
without  his  principles  as  with  them  ?  TeH.us,  if  the 
hold  we  have  of  a  man's  own  personal  advantage 
were  thus  broken  down,  in  how  far  the  virtues  of 
the  mercantile  world  would  survive  it?  Would  not 
the  world  of  trade  sustain  as  violent  a  derangement 
on  this  mighty  hold  being  cut  asunder,  as  the  world 
of  nature  would  on  the  suspending  of  the  law  of 
gravitation  ?  would  not  the  whole  system,  in  fact, 
fall  to  pieces,  and  be  dissolved  ?  would  not  men, 
when  thus  released  from  the  magical  chain  of  their 
own  interest,  which  bound  them  together  into  a 
fair  and  seeming  compact  of  principle,  like  dogs  of 
rapine,  let  loose  upon  their  prey,  overleap  the  bar- 
rier which  formerly  restrained  them  ?  Does  not 
this  prove,  that  seliishness,  after  all,  is  the  grand 
principle  on  which  the  brotherhood  of  the  human 
race  is  made  to  hang  together ;  and  that  he  who 
can  make  the  wrath  of  man  to  praise  him,  has  also, 
upon  the  seliishness  of  man,  caused  a  most  beau- 
teous order  of  wide  and  useful  intercourse  to  be 
suspended  ? 

But  let  us  here  stop  to  observe,  that  while 
there  is  much  in  this  contemplation  to  magnify  the 
wisdom  of  the  Supreme  Contriver,  there  is  also 
much  in  it  to  humble  man,  and  to  convict  him  of  the 
deceitfulness  of  that  moral  complacency  with  which 
he  looks  to  his  own  character,  and  his  own  attain- 
ments. There  is  much  in  it  to  demonstrate,  that 
his  riirhteousnesses  are  as  iiltliy  rags  ;  and  that  the 


60  eilALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

idolatry  of  self,  however  hidden  in  its  operatioiij 
may  be  detected  in  almost  every  one  of  them.  G  od 
may  combine  the  separate  interests  of  every  indi- 
vidual of  the  human  race,  and  the  strenuous  prose- 
cution of  these  interests  by  each  of  them,  into  a  har- 
monious system  of  operation,  for  the  good  of  one 
great  and  extended  family.  But  if,  on  estimating 
the  character  of  each  individual  member  of  that 
family,  we  shall  find,  that  the  main-spring  of  his  ac- 
tions is  the  urgency  of  a  selfish  inclination  ;  and  that 
to  this  his  very  virtues  are  subordinate  ;  and  that 
even  the  honesties  which  mark  his  conduct  are 
chiefly,  though,  perhaps,  insensibly  due  to  the  self- 
ishness which  actuates  and  occupies  his  whole  heart; 
then,  let  the  semblance  be  what  it  may,  still  the 
reality  of  the  case  accords  with  the  most  mortifying 
representations  of  the  New  Testament.  The  mo- 
ralities of  nature  are  but  the  moralities  of  a  day, 
and  will  cease  to  be  applauded  when  this  world,  the 
only  theatre  of  their  applause,  is  burnt  up.  They 
are  but  the  blossoms  of  that  rank  efflorescence  which 
is  nourished  on  the  soil  of  human  corruption,  and 
can  never  bring  forth  fruit  unto  immortality.  The 
discerner  of  all  secrets  sees  that  they  emanate  from 
a  principle  which  is  at  utter  war  with  the  charity 
that  prepares  for  the  enjoyments,  and  that  glows  in 
the  bosoms  of  the  celestial ;  and,  therefore,  though 
highly  esteemed  among  men,  they  may  be  in  his 
sight  an  abomination. 

Let  us,  if  possible,  make  this  still  clearer  to  yqur 


CHALMERS'    DISCOURSES.  61 

apprehension,  by  descending  more  minutely  into 
particulars.  There  is  not  one  member  of  the  great 
mercantile  family,  with  whom  there  does  not  obtain 
a  reciprocal  interest  between  himself  and  all  those 
who  compose  the  circle  of  his  various  correspond- 
ents. He  does  them  good  ;  but  his  eye  is  all  the 
while  open  to  the  expectation  of  their  doing  him 
something  again.  They  minister  to  him  all  the  prof- 
its of  his  employment ;  but  not  unless  he  minister 
to  them  of  his  service,  and  attention,  and  fidelity. 
Insomuch,  that  if  his  credit  abandon  him,  his  pros- 
perity will  also  abandon  him.  If  he  forfeit  the  con- 
fidence of  others,  he  will  also  forfeit  their  custom 
along  with  it.  So  that,  in  perfect  consistency  with 
interest  being  the  reigning  idol  of  his  soul,  he  may 
still  be,  in  every  way  as  sensitive  of  encroachment 
upon  his  reputation,  as  he  would  be  of  encroach- 
ment upon  his  property  ;  and  be  as  vigilant,  to  the 
full,  in  guarding  his  name  against  the  breath  of 
calumny,  or  suspicion,  as  in  guarding  his  estate  a- 
gainst  the  inroads  of  a  depredator.  Now,  this  tie 
of  reciprocity,  which  binds  him  into  fellowship  and 
good  faith  with  society  at  large,  will  sometimes,  in 
the  mere  course  of  business,  and  its  unlooked-for 
fluctuations,  draw  one  or  two  individuals  into  a  still 
more  special  intimacy  with  himself.  There  may 
be  a  lucrative  partnership,  in  which  it  is  the  pres- 
sing necessity  of  each  individual,  that  all  of  them, 
for  a  tin>c  at  least,  stick  closely  and  steadily  to- 
gether.    Or  there  may  be  a  thriving  interch^inge  of 

6 


62  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

commodities  struck  out,  where  it  is  the  mutual  in- 
terest of  all  who  are  concerned,  that  ea'^h  take  his 
assigned  part  and  adhere  to  it.  Or  there  may  he 
a  promising  arrangement  devised,  which  it  needs 
jconcert  and  understanding  to  effectuate  5  and,  for 
which  purpose,  several  may  enter  into  a  skilful  and 
well  ordered  combination.  We  are  neither  saying 
that  this  is  very  general  in  the  mercantile  world,  or 
that  it  is  in  the  slightest  degree  unfair.  But  you 
must  be  sensible,  that,  amid  the  reelings  and  move 
ments  of  the  great  trading  society,  the  phenomenon 
sometimes  offers  itself  of  a  groupe  of  individuals 
who  have  entered  into  some  compact  of  mutual  ac- 
commodation, and  who,  therefore,  look  as  if  they 
were  isolated  from  the  rest  by  the  bond  of  some  more 
strict  and  separate  alliance.  All  we  aim  at,  is  to 
gather  illustration  to  our  principle,  out  of  the  way 
in  which  the  members  of  this  associated  cluster  con- 
duct themselves  to  each  other  ;  how  such  a  cordial- 
ity may  pass  between  them,  as,  one  could  suppose 
to  be  the  cordiality  of  genuine  friendship  ;  how  such 
an  intercourse  might  be  maintained  among  their 
famihes,  as  might  look  like  the  intercourse  of  un- 
minoled  affection :  how  such  an  exuberance  of 
mutual  hospitality  might  be  poured  forth  as  to  recal 
those  poetic  days  when  avarice  was  unknown,  and 
men  lived  in  harmony  together  on  the  fruits  of  one 
common  inheritance  5  and  how  nobly  disdainful  each 
member  of  the  combination  appeared  to  be  of  such 
,Uttle  savings  as  could  be  easily  surrendered  to  the 


CHALMERS^  DISCOURSES.  63 

general  good  and  adjustment  of  the  whole  concern. 
And  all  this,  you  will  observe,  so  long  as  the  con- 
cern prospered,  and  it  was  for  the  interest  of  each 
to  abide  by  it ;  and  the  respective  accounts  current 
gladdened  the  heart  of  every  individual,  by  the 
exhibition  of  an  abundant  share  of  the  common  ben- 
efit to  himself.  But  then,  every  such  system  of 
operations  comes  to  an  end.  And  what  we  ask  is, 
if  it  be  at  all  an  unlikely  evolution  of  our  nature, 
that  the  selfishness  which  lay  in  wrapt  concealment 
during  the  progress  of  these  transactions,  should 
now  come  forward  and  put  out  to  view  its  cloven 
foot,  when  they  draw  to  their  termination  ?  And  as 
the  tie  of  reciprocity  gets  looser,  is  it  not  a  very 
possible  thing,  that  the  murmurs  of  something  like 
unfair  or  unhandsome  conduct  should  get  louder  ? 
And  that  a  fellowship,  hitherto  carried  forward  in 
smiles,  should  break  up  in  reproaches  ?  And  that 
the  whole  character  of  this  fellowship  should  show 
itself  more  unequivocally  as  it  comes  nearer  to  its 
close  ?  And  that  some  of  its  members,  as  they  are 
becoming  disengaged  from  the  bond  of  mutual  in- 
terest, should  also  become  disengaoed  from  the 
bond  of  those  mutual  delicacies  and  proprieties, 
and  even  honesties,  which  had  heretofore  marked 
the  whole  of  their  intercourse  ?  Insomuch,  that  a 
matter  in  which  all  the  parties  looked  so  fair,  and 
magnanimous,  and  liberal,  might  at  length  degene- 
rate into  a  contest  of  keen  appropriation,  a  scram- 
ble of  downright  and  undisguised  selfishness  ? 


64  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

But  though  this  may  happen  sometimes,  we  are 
far  from  saying  that  it  will  happen  generally.  It 
€Oul(l  not,  in  fact,  without  such  an  exposure  of  char- 
acter, as  might  not  merely  bring  a  man  down  in  the 
estimation  of  those  from  whom  he  is  now  withdra'W- 
ing  himself,  but  also  in  the  estimation  of  that  gener- 
al public  with  whom  he  is  still  linked  ;  and  on  whose 
opinion  of  him  there  still  rests  the  dependence  of  a 
strong  personal  interest.  To  estimate  precisely 
the  whole  influence  of  this  consideration,  or  the  de- 
gree in  which  honesty  of  character,  is  resolvable  in- 
to selfishness  of  character,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
suppose,  that  the  tie  of  reciprocity  was  dissolved, 
not  merely  between  the  individual  and  those  with 
whom  he  iiad  been  more  particularly  and  more  in- 
timately associated — but  that  the  tie  of  reciprocity 
\vas  dissolved  between  the  individual  and  the  whole 
of  his  former  acquaintanceship  in  business.  Now, 
the  situation  which  comes  nearest  to  this,  is  that  of 
a  man  on  the  eve  of  bankruptcy,  and  with  no  sure 
hope  of  so  retrieving  his  circumstances  as  again  to 
emerge  into  credit,  and  be  restored  to  some  employ- 
ment of  gain  or  of  confidence.  If  he  have  either 
honourable  or  religious  feelings,  then  character,  as 
connected  with  principle  may  still,  in  his  eyes,  be 
something;  but  character,  as  connected  with  pru- 
dence, or  the  calculations  of  interest,  may  now  be 
nothing.  In  the  dark  hour  of  the  desperation  of  his 
soul,  he  may  feel,  in  fact,  that  he  has  nothing  to  lose  : 
and  let  us  now  see  how  he  will  conduct  himself. 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  65 

"when  thus  released  from  that  check  of  reputation, 
which  formerly  held  him.  Tn  these  circumstances, 
if  you  have  ever  seen  the  man  abandon  himself  to 
utter  regardlessness  of  all  the  honesties  which  at 
one  time  adorned  him,  and  doing  such  disgraceful 
things  as  he  would  have  spurned  at  the  very  sugges' 
tion  of,  in  the  days  of  his  prosperity  ;  and,  forgetful 
of  his  former  name,  practising  all  possible  shifts  of 
duplicity  to  prolong  the  credit  of  a  tottering  estab- 
lishment ;  and  to  keep  himself  afloat  for  a  few 
months  of  torture  and  restlessness,  weaving  such  a 
web  of  entanglement  around  his  many  friends  and 
companions,  as  shall  most  surely  implicate  some  of 
them  in  his  fall  ;  and,  as  the  crisis  approaches,  ply- 
ing his  petty  wiles  how  to  survive  the  coming  ruin, 
and  to  gather  up  of  its  fragments  to  his  family.  O  ! 
how  much  is  there  here  to  deplore  ;  and  who  can 
be  so  ungenerous  as  to  stalk  in  unrelenting  triumph 
over  the  helplessness  of  so  sad  an  overthrow !  But 
if  ever  such  an  exhibition  meet  your  eye,  while  we 
ask  you  not  to  withhold  your  pity  from  the  unfortu- 
nate, we  ask  you  also  to  read  in  it  a  lesson  of  worth- 
less and  sunken  humanity  ;  how  even  its  very  vir- 
tues are  tinctured  with  corruption  ;  and  that  the 
honour,  and  the  truth,  and  the  equity,  with  which 
man  proudly  thinks  his  nature  to  be  embellished, 
are  often  reared  on  the  basis  of  selfishness,  and  lie 
prostrate  in  the  dust  when  that  basis  is  cut  away. 

But  other  instances   may  be  quoted,   which  go 
still  more  satisfactorily  to  prove  the  very  extender] 

6^^ 


66  CHALMERS*  DISCOURSE  S^ 

influence  of  selfishness  on  the  moral  judfiments  of 
our  species ;  and  how  readily  the  estimate,  which 
a  man  forms  on  the  question  of  right  and  wrong, 
accommodates  itself  to  his  own  interest.  There  is 
a  strong  general  reciprocity  of  advantage  between 
the  government  of  a  country  and  all  its  inhabitants. 
The  one  party,  in  this  relation,  renders  a  revenue 
for  the  expenses  of  the  stata.  The  other  party 
renders  back  again  protection  from  injustice  and 
violence.  Were  the  means  furnished  by  the  for- 
mer withheld,  the  benefit  conferred  by  the  latter 
would  cease  to  be  administered.  So  that,  with  the 
government,  and  the  public  at  large,  nothing  can 
be  more  strict,  and  more  indispensable,  than  the 
tie  of  reciprocity  that  is  between  them.  But  this 
is  not  felt,  and  therefore  not  acted  upon  by  the 
separate  individuals  who  compose  that  public. — 
The  reciprocity  does  not  come  home  with  a  suffi- 
ciently pointed  and  personal  application  to  each  of 
them.  Every  man  may  calculate,  that  though  he, 
on  the  strength  of  some  dexterous  evasions,  were 
to  keep  back  of  the  tribute  that  is  due  by  him,  the 
mischief  that  would  recoil  upon  himself  is  divided 
with  the  rest  of  his  countrymen ;  and  the  portion 
of  it  which  comes  to  his  door  would  be  so  very 
sm"all,  as  to  be  altogether  insensible.  To  all  feel- 
ing he  will  Just  be  as  effectually  sheltered,  by  the 
power  and  the  justice  of  his  country,  whether  he 
pay  his  taxes  in  full,  or,  under  the  guise  of  some 
skilful  conceaimenij  pay  them  but  partially  ;    ant5 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  67 

therefore,  to  every  practical  effect,  the  tie  of  reci- 
procity, betweenjhim  and  his  sovereign,  is  in  a  great 
measure  dissolved.  Now,  what  is  the  actual  ad- 
justment of  the  moral  sense,  and  moral  conduct,  of 
the  population,  to  this  state  of  matters  ?  It  is  quite 
palpable.  Subterfuges,  which,  in  private  business, 
would  be  held  to  be  disgraceful  are  not  held  to 
be  so  disgraceful  in  this  department  of  a  man's 
personal  transactions.  The  cry  of  indignation, 
which  would  be  lifted  up  against  the  false- 
hood or  dishonesty  of  a  man's  dealings  in  his  own 
neighbourhood,  is  mitigated  or  unheard,  though,  in 
his  dealings  with  the  state,  there  should  be  the  very 
same  relaxation  of  principle.  On  this  subject, 
there  is  a  connivance  of  popular  feeling,  which,  if 
extended  to  the  whole  of  human  traffic,  would  banish 
all  its  securities  from  the  world*  Giving  reason  to 
believe,  that  much  of  the  good  done  among  men,  is 
done  on  the  expectation  of  a  good  that  will  be  ren- 
dered back  again  ;  and  that  many  of  the  virtues,  by 
which  the  fellowship  of  human  beings  is  regulated 
and  sustained,  still  leave  the  imputation  unredeem- 
ed, of  its  being  a  fellowship  of  sinners;  and  that 
both  the  practice  of  morality,  and  the  demand  for 
it,  are  measured  by  the  operation  of  a  self-love, 
which,  so  far  from  signalizing  any  man,  or  prepar- 
ing him  for  eternity,  he  holds  in  common  with  the 
fiercest  and  most  degenerate  of  his  species  ;  and 
that,  apart  from  the  consideration  of  his  own  inter- 
est, simplicity  and  godly  sincerity  are,  to  a  great 
degree,  unknown  ;  insomuch,  that  though  God  has 


68  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES, 

interposed  with  a  law,  of  giving  unto  all  their  dues, 
and  tribute  to  whom  tribute  is  due — we  may  ven- 
ture an  affirmation  of  the  vast  majority  of  this  trib- 
ute, that  it  is  rendered  for  wrath's  sake,  and  not  for 
conscience'  sake.  Of  so  little  effect  is  unsupport- 
ed and  solitary  conscience  to  stem  the  tide  of  self- 
ishness. And  it  is  chiefly  when  honesty  and  truth 
go  overbearingly  along  with  this  tide,  that  th^ 
voice  of  man  is  lifted  up  to  acknowledge  them,  and 
his  heart  becomes  feelingly  alive  to  a  sense  of  Iheir 
obhgations. 

And  let  us  here  just  ask,  in  what  relation  of 
criminality  does  he  who  uses  a  contraband  article 
stand  to  him  who  deals  in  it  ?  In  precisely  the  same 
relation  that  a  receiver  of  stolen  goods  stands  to  a 
thief  or  a  depredator.  There  may  be  some  who 
revolt  at  the  idea  of  being  so  classitied.  But,  if 
the  habit  we  have  just  denounced  can  be  fastened 
On  men  of  rank  and  seemly  reputation,  let  us  just 
humble  ourselves  into  the  admission  of  how  little 
the  righteous  practice  of  the  world  has  the  founda- 
tion of  ria;hteous  principle  to  sustain  it ;  how  fee- 
ble are  the  securities  of  rectitude,  had  it  nothing 
to  uphold  it  but  its  own  native  charms,  and  native 
obligations ;  how  society  is  held  together,  only  be- 
cause the  grace  of  God  can  turn  to  account  the 
worthless  propensities  of  the  individuals  who  com- 
pose it ;  and  how,  if  the  virtues  of  fidelity,  and 
truth,  and  justice,  had  not  the  prop  of  selfishness  to 
rest  upon,  they  would,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  69 

scattered  remnants,  take  their  departure  from  the 
world,  and  leave  it  a  prey  to  the  anarchy  of  human 
passions — to  the  wild  misrule  of  all  those  depravi- 
ties which  agitate  and  deform  our  ruined  nature. 

The  very  same  exhibition  of  our  nature  may  be 
witnessed  in  almost  every  parish  of  our  sister  king- 
dom, where  the  people  render  a  revenue  to  the 
minister  of  religion,  and  the  minister  renders  back 
again  a  return  it  is  true — but  not  such  a  return,  as, 
in  the  estimation  of  gross  and  ordinary  selfishness, 
is  at  all  deemed  an  equivalent  for  the  sacrifice 
which  has  been  made.  In  this  instance,  too,  that 
law  of  reciprocity  which  reigns  throughout  the 
common  transactions  of  merchandise,  is  altogether 
suspended  ;  and  the  consequence  is,  that  the  law  of 
right  is  trampled  into  ashes.  A  tide  of  public  odi- 
um runs  against  the  men  who  are  outraged  of  their 
property,  and  a  smile  of  general  connivance  rewards 
the  successful  dexterity  of  the  men  who  invade  it. 
That  portion  of  the  annual  produce  of  our  soul, 
which,  on  a  foundation  of  legitimacy  as  firm  as  the 
property  of  the  soil  itself,  is  allotted  to  a  set  of  na- 
tional functionaries — and  which,  but  for  them,  would 
all  have  gone,  in  the  shape  of  increased  revenue,  to 
the  indolent  proprietor,  is  altogether  thrown  loose 
from  the  guardianship  of  that  great  principle  of  re- 
ciprocity, on  which  we  strongly  suspect  that  the 
honesties  of  this  world  are  mainly  supported.  The 
national  clergy  of  England  may  be  considered  as 
fitamding  out  of  the  pale  of  this  guardianship  ;  and 


70  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

the  consequence  is,  that  what  is  most  rightfully  and 
most  sacredly  theirs,  is  ahandoned  to  the  gambol  of 
many  thousand  depredators ;  and,  in  addition  to  a 
load  of  most  uomerited  obloquy,  have  they  had  to 
sustain  all  the  heartburnings  of  known  and  felt  in- 
justice ;  and  that  intercourse  between  the  teachers 
and  the  taught,  which  ought  surely  to  be  an  inter- 
course of  peace,  and  friendship,  and  righteousness, 
is  turned  into  a  contest  between  the  natural  avarice 
of  the  one  party,  and  the  natural  resentments  of  the 
other.  It  is  not  that  we  wish  our  sister  church 
were  swept  away,  for  we  honestly  think,  that  the 
overthrow  of  that  establishment  would  be  a  severe 
blow  to  the  Christianity  of  our  land.  It  is  not  that 
we  envy  that  great  hierarchy  the  splendour  of  her 
endowments — for  better  a  dinner  of  herbs,  when 
surrounded  by  the  love  of  parishioners,  than  a  pre- 
ferment of  stalled  dignity,  and  strife  therewith.  It 
is  not  either  that  we  look  upon  her  ministers  as  hav- 
ing at  all  disgraced  themselves  by  their  rapacity  ; 
for  look  to  the  amount  of  the  encroaciiments  that 
are  made  upon  them,  and  you  will  see  that  they 
have  carried  their  privileges  with  the  most  exem- 
plary forbearance  and  moderation.  But,  from  these 
very  encroachments  do  we  infer  how  lawless  a  hu- 
man being  will  become,  when  emancipated  from 
the  bond  of  his  own  interest  ;  how  much  such  a 
state  of  things  must  multiply  the  temptations  to  in- 
justice over  the  face  of  the  country  ;  and  how  de- 
sirable, therefore,  that  it  were  put  an  end  to — not 


€HALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  71 

by  the  abolition  of  that  venerable  church,  but  by  a 
fair  and  liberal  commutation  of  the  revenues  which 
support  her — not  by  bringing  any  blight  on  the  pro- 
perty of  her  ecclesiastics,  but  by  the  removal  of  a 
most  devouring  blight  from  the  worth  of  her  popu- 
ation — that  every  provocative  to  injustice  may  be 
done  away,  and  the  frailty  of  human  principle  be  no 
longer  left  to  such  a  ruinous  and  such  a  withering 
exposure. 

This  instance  we  would  not  have  mentioned,  but 
for  the  sake  of  adding  another  experimental  proof 
to  the  lesson  of  our  text ;  and  we  now  hasten  on- 
ward to  the  lesson  itself,  with  a  few  of  its  applica- 
tions. 

We  trust  you  are  convinced,  from  what  has  been 
said  that  much  of  the  actual  honesty  of  the  world  is 
due  to  the  selfishness  of  the  world.  And  then  you 
will  surely  admit,  that,  in  as  far  as  this  is  the  actua- 
ting principle,  honesty  descends  from  its  place  as  a 
rewardable,  or  even  as  an  amiable  virtue,  and  sinks 
down  into  the  character  of  a  mere  prudential  virtue 
— which,  so  far  from  conferring  any  moral  exaltation 
on  him  by  whom  it  is  exemplified,  emanates  out  of 
a  propensity  that  seems  inseparable  from  the  con- 
stitution of  every  sentient  being — and  by  which 
man  is,  in  one  point,  assimilated  either  to  the  most 
worthless  of  his  own  species,  or  to  those  inferior  an- 
imals among  whom  worth  is  unattainable. 

And  let  it  not  deafen  the  humbling  impression  of 
this  argument,  that  you  are  not  distinctly  conscious 


72  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

of  the  operation  of  selfishness,  as  presiding  at  ever^ 
step  over  the  honesty  of  your  daily  and  familiar 
transactions;  and  that  the  only  inward  checks  a- 
gainst  injustice,  of  which  you  are  sensible,  are  the 
aversion  of  a  generous  indignancy  towards  it,  and 
the  positive  discomfort  you  would  incur  by  the  re- 
proaches of  your  own  conscience.  Selfishness,  in 
fact,  may  have  originated  and  alimented  the  whole 
of  this  virtue  that  belongs  to  you,  and  yet  the  mind 
incur  the  same  discomfort  by  the  violation  of  it, 
that  it  would  do  by  the  violation  of  any  other  of  its 
established  habits.  And  as  to  the  generous  indig- 
nancy of  your  feelings  against  all  that  is  fraudulently 
and  disgracefully  wrong,  let  us  never  forget,  that 
this  may  be  the  nurtured  fruit  of  that  common  self- 
ishness which  links  human  beings  with  each  other 
into  a  relationship  of  mutual  dependence.  This 
may  be  seen,  in  all  its  perfection,  among  the  leagued 
and  sworn  banditti  of  the  highway  ;  who,  while  ex- 
ecrated by  society  at  large  for  the  compact  of  ini- 
quity into  which  they  have  entered,  can  maintain 
the  most  heroic  fidelity  to  the  virtues  of  their  own 
brotherhood — and  be,  in  every  way,  as  lofty  and  as 
chivalric  with  their  points  of  honour,  as  we  are  with 
ours  ;  and  elevate  as  indignant  a  voice  against  the 
worthlessness  of  him  who  could  betray  the  secret  of 
their  association,  or  break  up  any  of  the  securities 
by  which  it  w^as  held  together.  And,  in  like  man- 
ner, may  we  be  the  members  of  a  wider  combina- 
tion, yet  brought  together  by  the  tie  of  reciprocal 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  7.;; 

laterest  ;  and  all  the  virtues  essential  to  the  exist- 
ence, or  to  the  good  of  such  a  connbination,  may 
come  to  be  idolized  amongst  us  ;  and  the  breath  of 
human  applause  may  fan  them  into  a  lustre  of  splen- 
did estimation  ;  and  yet  the  good  man  of  society  on 
earth  be,  in  common  with  all  his  fellows,  an  utter 
outcast  from  the  society  of  heaven — with  his  heart 
altogether  bereft  of  that  allegiance  to  God  which 
forms  the  reigning  principle  of  his  unfallen  creation 
and  in  a  state  of  entire  destitution  either  as  to  that 
love  of  the  Supreme  Being,  or  as  to  that  disinteres- 
ted love  of  those  around  us,  which  form  the  graces 
and  the  virtues  of  eternity. 

We  have  not  affirmed  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  a  native  and  disinterested  principle  of  honour 
among  men.  But  we  have  affirmed,  on  a  former 
occasion,  that  a  sense  of  honour  may  be  in  the  heart, 
and  the  sense  of  God  be  utterly  away  from  it.  And 
we  affirm  now,  that  much  of  the  honest  practice  of 
the  world  is  not  due  to  honesty  of  principle  at  all, 
but  takes  its  origin  from  a  baser  ingredient  of  oui 
constitution  altogether.  How  wide  is  the  opera 
tion  of  selfishness  on  the  one  hand,  and  how  limited 
is  the  operation  of  abstract  principle  on  the  other, 
it  were  difficult  to  determine  ;  and  such  a  labyrinth 
to  man  is  his  own  heart,  that  he  may  be  utterly 
unable,  from  his  own  consciousness,  to  answer  this 
question.  But  amid  all  the  difficulties  of  such  an 
analysis  to  himself,  we  ask  him  to  think  of  anothej 
>vho  is  unseen  by  us,  but  who  is  represented  to  m 

7 


74  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES, 

as  seeing  all  things.  We  know  not  in  what  charac- 
ters this  heavenly  witness  can  be  more  impressively 
set  forth,  than  as  pondering  the  heart,  as  weighing 
the  secrets  of  the  heart,  as  fastening  an  attentive 
and  a  judging  eye  on  all  the  movements  of  it,  as 
treasuring  up  the  whole  of  man^s  outward  and  in- 
ward historv  in  a  book  of  remembrance  ;  and  as 
keeping  it  in  reserve  for  that  day  when,  it  is  said, 
that  the  secrets  of  all  hearts  shall  be  laid  open ; 
and  God  shall  bring  out  every  secret  thing,  whether 
it  be  good,  or  whether  it  be  evil.  Your  conscious- 
ness may  not  distinctly  inform  you,  in  how  far  the 
integrity  of  your  habits  is  due  to  the  latent  opera- 
tion of  selfishness,  or  to  the  more  direct  and  obvi- 
ous operation  of  honour.  But  your  consciousness 
may,  perhaps,  inform  you  distinctly  enough,  how 
little  a  share  the  will  of  God  has  in  the  way  of  in- 
fluence on  any  of  your  doings.  Your  own  sense 
and  memory  of  what  passes  within  you  may  charge 
you  with  the  truth  of  this  monstrous  indictment — 
that  you  live  without  God  in  the  world  ;  that  how- 
ever you  may  be  signalized  among  your  fellows,  by 
that  worth  of  character  which  is  held  in  highest  value 
and  demand  amongst  the  individuals  of  a  mercantile 
society,  it  is  at  least  without  the  influence  of  a  god- 
ly principle  that  you  have  reached  the  maturity  of 
an  established  reputation  ;  that  either  the  proud  e- 
motions  of  rectitude  which  glow  within  your  bosom 
are  totally  untinctured  by  a  feeling  of  homage  to  the 
Deitv — or  that,  without  any  such  emotions.  Self  is 


CHALMERS'  DlSCOl-RSt.-. 


.  J 


the  divinity  you  have  all  along  uorshippcd,  and 
your  very  virtues  are  so  many  offerings  of  reverence 
at  her  shrine.  If  such  be,  in  fact,  the  nakedness 
of  your  spiritual  condition,  is  it  not  high  time,  wc 
ask,  that  you  awaken  out  of  this  delusion,  and 
shake  the  lying  spirit  of  deep  and  heavy  slum- 
ber away  from  you  ?  Is  it  not  high  time,  when  eter- 
nity is  so  fast  coming  on,  that  you  examine  your 
accounts  with  God,  and  seek  for  a  settlement  witii 
that  Being  who  wdll  so  soon  meet  your  disembodied 
spirits  with  the  question  of — what  have  you  done 
unto  me  ?  And  if  all  the  virtues  v.'hich  adorn  you 
are  but  the  subserviences  of  time,  and  of  its  ac- 
commodations— if  either  done  altogether  unto  your- 
selves, or  done  without  the  recognition  of  God  on 
the  spontaneous  instigation  of  your  own  feelings — 
is  it  not  high  time  that  you  lean  no  longer  to  the 
securities  on  which  you  have  rested,  and  that  you 
seek  for  acceptance  with  your  maker  on  a  more 
firm  and  unalterable  foundation  ? 

This  then,  is  the  terminating  object  of  all  the  ex- 
perience that  we  have  tried  to  set  before  you.  We 
want  it  to  be  a  schoolmaster  to  bring  you  unto 
Christ.  We  want  you  to  open  your  eyes  to  the 
accordancy  w^hich  obtains  between  the  theology  of 
the  New-Testament,  and  the  actual  state  and  his- 
tory of  man.  Above  all,  we  want  you  to  turn  your 
eyes  inwardly  upon  yourselves,  and  there  to  behold 
a  character  without  one  trace  or  lineament  of  god- 
liness— there   to  behold  a  heart  set   upon   totally 


76  CHALMERS"  DISCOURSES. 

other  things  than  those  which  constitute  the  portion 
iind  the  reward  of  eternity — There  to  behold  every 
principle  of  action  resolvable  into  the  idolatry  oi" 
self,  or,  at  least,  into  something  independent  of  the 
authority  of  God — there  to  behold  how  worthless 
in  their  substance  are  those  virtues  which  look  so 
imposing  in  their  semblance  and  their  display,  and 
draw  around  them  here  a  popularity  and  an  applause 
which  will  all  be  dissipated  into  nothing,  when  here- 
after they  are  brought  up  for  examination  to  the 
judgment-seat.  We  want  you,  when  the  revelation 
of  the  gospel  charges  you  with  the  totality  and  mag- 
nitude of  your  corruption,  that  you  acquiesce  in 
that  charge  ;  and  that  you  may  perceive  the  true- 
ness  of  it,  under  the  disguise  of  all  those  hollow  and 
unsubstantial  accomplishments  with  which  nature 
may  deck  her  own  fallen  and  degenerate  children. 
It  is  easy  to  be  amused,  and  interested,  and  intellec- 
tually regaled,  by  an  analysis  of  the  human  charac- 
ter, and  a  survey  of  human  society.  But  it  is  not 
so  easy  to  reach  the  individual  conscience  with  the 
lesson — we  are  undone.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  strike 
the  alarm  into  your  hearts  of  the  present  guilt,  and 
the  future  damnation.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  send  the 
pointed  arrow  of  conviction  into  your  bosoms,  where 
it  mav  keep  by  you  and  pursue  you  like  an  arrow 
sticking  fast ;  or  so  to  humble  you  into  the  concla- 
sion,  that  in  the  sight  of  God,  you  are  an  accursed 
thing,  as  that  you  may  seek  unto  him  who  became  a 
curse  for  you,  and  as  that  the  preaching  of  his  Cross 
might  cease  to  be  foolishness. 


CtiALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  77 

Be  asssured,  then,  if  you  keep  by  the  ground  of 
being  justified  by  your  present  v.orks,  you  will  per- 
ish :  and  though  we  may  not  have  succeeded  in 
convincing  you  of  their  vvorthlessness,  be  assured, 
that  a  day  is  coming  when  such  a  flaw  of  deceit(ul- 
ness,  in  the  principle  of  them  all,  shall  be  laid  open, 
as  will  demonstrate  the  equity  of  your  entire  and 
everlasting  condemnation.  To  avert  the  fearful- 
ness  of  that  day  is  the  message  of  the  great  atone- 
ment sounded  in  your  ears — and  the  blood  of 
Christ,  cleansing  from  all  sin,  is  offered  to  your  ac- 
ceptance ;  and  if  you  turn  away  from  it,  you  add 
to  the  guilt  of  a  broken  law  the  insult  of  a  neglect- 
ed gospel.  But  if  you  take  the  pardon  of  the  gos- 
pel on  the  footing  of  the  gospel,  then,  such  is  the 
efficacy  of  this  great  expedient,  that  it  will  reach 
an  application  of  mercy  farther  than  the  eye  of 
your  own  conscience  ever  reached  ;  that  it  will  re- 
deem you  from  the  guilt  even  of  your  most  secret 
and  unsuspected  iniquities ;  and  thoroughly  wash 
you  from  a  taint  of  sinfulness,  more  inveterate  than, 
in  the  blindness  of  nature,  you  ever  thought  of,  or 
ever  conceived  to  belong  to  you. 

Bui  when  a  man  becomes  a  believer,  there  are 
two  great  events  which  take  place  at  this  great 
turning  point  in  his  history.  One  of  them  takes 
place  in  heaven — even  the  expunging  of  his  name 
from  the  book  of  condemnation.  Another  of  them 
takes  place  on  earth — even  the  application  of  such 
a  sanctifying  inllnence  to  his  person,  that  all  ol4 

7  * 


7S  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

things  are  done  away  with  him,  and  all  things  be- 
come new  with  him.  He  is  made  the  workman- 
ship of  God  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.  He  is  not 
merely  forgiven  the  sin  of  every  one  evil  work  of 
which  he  had  aforetime  been  guilty,  but  he  is  crea- 
ted anew  unto  the  corresponding  good  work.  And, 
therefore,  if  a  Christian,  will  his  honesty  be  purifi- 
ed from  that  taint  of  selfishness  by  which  the  gen- 
eral honesty  of  this  world  is  so  deeply  and  exten- 
sively pervaded.  He  will  not  do  this  good  thing, 
that  any  good  thing  may  be  done  unto  him  again. 
He  will  do  it  on  a  simple  regard  to  its  own  native 
and  independent  rectitude.  He  will  do  it  because 
it  is  honourable,  and  because  God  wills  him  so  to 
adorn  the  doctrine  of  his  Saviour.  All  his  fair 
dealing,  and  all  his  friendship,  will  be  fair  dealing 
and  friendship  without  interest.  The  principle 
that  is  in  him  will  stand  in  no  need  of  aid  from  anv 
'such  auxiliary — but  strong  in  its  own  unborrowed 
resources,  will  it  impress  a  legible  stamp  of  dignity 
and  uprightness  on  the  whole  variety  of  his  trans- 
actions in  the  world.  All  men  find  it  their  advan- 
tage, by  the  integrity  of  their  dealings,  to  prolong 
the  existence  of  some  gainful  fellowship  into  which 
they  may  have  entered.  But  with  him,  the  same 
unsullied  integrity  which  kept  this  fellowship  to- 
gether, and  sustained  the  progress  of  it,  will  abide 
with  him  through  its  last  transactions,  and  dignify 
its  full  and  final  termination.  Most  men  find,  that, 
without  the  reverberation  of  any  mischief  on  their 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  79 

own  heads,  they  could  reduce  beneath  the  point  of 
absolute  justice,  the  charges  of  taxation.  But  he 
has  a  conscience  both  towards  God,  and  towards 
man,  which  will  not  let  him ;  and  there  is  a  rigid 
truth  in  all  his  returns,  a  pointed  and  precise  accu- 
racy in  all  his  payments.  When  hemmed  in  with 
circumstances  of  difiiculty,  and  evidently  tottering 
to  his  fall,  the  demand  of  nature  is,  that  he  should 
ply  his  every  artifice  to  secrete  a  provision  for  his 
family.  But  a  christian  mind  is  incapaljle  of  arti- 
fice ;  and  the  voice  of  conscience  within  him  will 
ever  be  louder  than  the  voice  of  necessity  ;  and  he 
will  be  open  as  day  with  his  creditors  nor  put  forth 
his  hand  to  that  which  is  rightfully  theirs,  any  more 
than  he  would  put  forth  his  hand  to  the  perpetra- 
tion of  a  sacrilege  ;  and  though  released  altogether 
from  that  tie  of  interest  which  binds  a  man  to  equi- 
ty with  his  fellows,  yet  the  tie  of  principle  will  re- 
main with  him  in  all  its  strength.  Nor  will  it  ever 
be  found  that  he,  for  the  sake  of  subsistence,  will 
enter  into  fraud,  seeing  that,  as  one  of  the  children 
of  light,  he  would  not,  to  gain  the  whole  world,  lose 
his  own  soul. 


DISCOURSE  IV. 

THE  GUILT  OF  DISHONESTY    NOT   TO  BE  ESTlMAv 
TED  BY  THE  GAIN  OF  IT. 


"  He  that  is  faithful  in  that  which  is  least,  is  faithful  also  in  much  ; 
and  he  that  is  unjust  in  the  least,  is  unjust  also  in  nauch." 

LuKExvi.  IG. 

It  is  the  fine  poetical  conception  of  a  late  poetical 
countryman,  whose  fancy  too  often  grovelled  among 
the  despicable  of  human  character — but  who,  at  the 
same  time,  was  capable  of  exhibiting,  either  in  plea- 
sing or  in  proud  array,  both  the  tender  and  the  no- 
ble of  human  character — when  he  says  of  the  man 
who  carried  a  native,  unborrowed,  self-sustained 
rectitude  in  his  bosom,  that  "  his  eye,  even  turned 
on  empty  space,  beamed  keen  with  honour."  It 
was  affirmed,  in  the  last  discourse,  that  much  of  the 
honourable  practice  of  the  world  rested  on  the  sub- 
stratum of  selfishness  ;  that  society  was  held  togeth- 
er in  the  exercise  of  its  relative  virtues,  mainly,  by 
the  tie  of  reciprocal  advantage  ;  that  a  man's  own 
interest  bound  him  to  all  those  average  equities 
w^hich  obtained  in  the  neighbourhood  around  him  : 
and  in  which,  if  he  proved  himself  to  .be  glaringly 
deficient,  he  would  be  abandoned  by  the  respect, 


Chalmers^  discourses.  si 

and  the  confidence,  and  the  good  will,  of  the  people 
with  whom  he  had  to  do.  It  is  a  melancholy 
thought,  how  little  the  semblance  of  virtue  upon 
earth  betokens  the  real  and  substantial  presence  of 
virtuous  principle  among  men.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  though  it  be  a  rare,  there  cannot  be  a  more 
dignified  attitude  of  the  soul,  than  when  of  itself  it 
kindles  with  a  sense  of  justice,  and  the  holy  flame  is 
fed,  as  it  were,  by  its  own  energies  ;  than  when  man 
moves  onwards  in  an  unchanging  course  of  moral 
magnanimity,  and  disdains  the  aid  of  those  inferior 
principles  by  which  gross  and  sordid  humanity  is 
kept  from  all  the  grosser  violations  ;  than  when  he 
rejoices  in  truth  as  his  kindred  and  congenial  ele- 
ment ; — so,  that  though  unpeopled  of  all  its  terres- 
trial accompaniments  ;  though  he  saw  no  interest 
whatever  to  be  associated  with  its  fulfilment;  though 
w^ithout  one  prospect  either  of  fame  or  of  emolument 
before  him,  would  his  eye,  even  when  turned  on 
emptiness  itself,  still  retain  the  living  lustre  that  had 
been  lighted  up  in  it,  by  a  feeling  of  inward  and  in- 
dependent reverence. 

It  has  already  been  observed,  and  that  fully,  and 
frequently  enough,  that  a  great  part  of  the  homage 
which  is  rendered  to  integrity  in  the  world,  is  due  to 
the  operation  of  selfishness.  And  this  substantially 
is  the  reason,  why  the  principle  of  the  text  has  so 
very  slender  a  hold  upon  the  human  conscience. 
Man  is  ever  prone  to  estimate  the  enormity  of  in- 
justice, by  the  decree  in  which  lie  suffers  from  it. 


32  CHAOIERS'  DISCOURSES. 

He  brings  this  moral  question  to  the  standard  ot* 
his  own  interest.  A  master  will  bear  with  all  the 
lesser  liberties  of  his  servants,  so  long  as  he  feels 
them  to  be  harmless  ;  and  it  is  not  till  he  is  awaken- 
ed to  the  apprehension  of  personal  injury  from  the 
amount  or  frequency  of  the  embezzlements,  that  his 
moral  indignation  is  at  all  sensibly  awakened.  And 
thus  it  is,  that  the  maxim  of  our  great  teacher  of 
rigliteousness  seems  to  be  very  much  unfelt,  or 
forgotten,  in  society.  Unfaithfulness  in  that  which 
is  little,  and  unfaithfulness  in  that  which  is  much, 
are  very  far  from  being  regarded,  as  they  were  by 
him  under  the  same  aspect  of  criminality.  If  there 
be  no  great  hurt,  it  is  felt  that  there  is  no  great 
harm.  The  innocence  of  a  hishonest  freedom  in 
respect  of  morality,  is  rated  by  its  insignificance  in 
respect  of  matter.  The  margin  which  separates 
the  right  from  the  wrong  is  remorselessly  trodden 
under  foot,  so  long  as  each  makes  only  a  minute 
and  gentle  encroachment  beyond  the  landmark  of 
his  neighbour's  territory.  On  this  subject  there  is 
a  loose  and  popular  estimate,  which  is  not  at  one 
with  the  deliverance  of  the  New  Testament ;  a 
habit  of  petty  invasion  on  the  side  of  aggressors, 
which  is  scarcely  felt  by  them  to  be  at  all  iniquitous 
— and  even  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  thus  made 
free  with  there  is  a  habit  of  loose  and  careless  tol- 
eration. There  is,  in  fact,  a  negligence  or  a  dor- 
mancy of  principle  among  men,  which  causes  this 
sort  of  injustice  to  be  easily  practised  on  the  one 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  S3 

side,  and  as  easily  put  up  with  on  the  other  ;  and, 
in  a  general  slackness  of  observation,  is  this  virtue, 
in  its  strictness  and  in  its  delicacy,  completely  over- 
borne. 

It  is  the  taint  of  selfishness,  then,  which  has  so 
marred  and  corrupted  the  moral  sensibility  of  our 
world ;  and  the  man,  if  such  a  man  can  be,  whose 
'*'  eye,  even  turned  on  empty  space,  beams  keen 
with  honour;"  and  whose  homage,  therefore,  to 
the  virtue  of  justice,  is  altogether  freed  from  the 
mixture  of  unworthy  and  interested  feelings,  will 
long  to  render  to  her,  in  every  instance,  a  faultless- 
and  a  completed  offering.  Whatever  his  forbear- 
ance to  others,  he  could  not  suffer  the  slightest  blot 
of  corruption  upon  any  doings  of  his  own.  He  can- 
not be  satisfied  with  any  thing  short  of  the  very  last 
jot  and  tittle  of  the  requirements  of  equity  being- 
fulfilled.  He  not  merely  shares  in  the  revolt  of  the 
general  world  against  such  outrageous  departures 
from  the  rule  of  right,  as  would  carry  in  their  train 
the  ruin  of  acquaintances  or  the  distress  of  fami- 
lies. Such  is  the  delicacy  of  the  principle  within 
him,  that  he  could  not  have  peace  under  the  con- 
sciousness even  of  the  minutest  and  least  discover- 
able violation.  He  looks  fully  and  fearlessly  at  the 
whole  account  which  justice  has  against  him ;  and 
he  cannot  rest  so  long  as  there  is  a  single  article 
unmet,  or  a  single  demand  unsatisfied.  If,  in  any 
transaction  of  his  there  was  so  much  as  a  farthin^r 
of  secret  and  iniurious  reservation  on  his  side,  this 


84  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

would  be  to  him  like  an  accursed  thing,  which  rnaiv 
red  the  character  of  the  whole  proceeding,  and 
spread  over  it  such  an  aspect  of  evil,  as  to  oiFend 
and  to  disturb  him.  He  could  not  bear  the  whis- 
perings of  his  own  heart,  if  it  told  liim,  that,  in  so 
much  as  by  one  iota  of  defect,  he  had  balanced  the 
matter  unfairly  between  himself  and  the  uncon- 
scious individual  with  whom  he  deals.  It  would 
lie  a  burden  upon  his  mind  to  hurt  and  to  make 
him  unhappy,  till  the  opportunity  of  explanation 
had  come  round,  and  he  had  obtained  ease  to  his 
conscience,  by  acquitting  himself  to  the  full  of  all  his 
obligations.  It  is  justice  in  the  uprightness  of  her 
attitude  ;  it  is  justice  in  the  onwardness  of  her 
path;  it  is  justice  disdaining  every  advantage  that 
would  tempt  her,  by  ever  so  little  to  the  right 
or  to  the  left ;  it  is  justice  spurning  the  littleness  of 
each  paltry  enticement  away  from  her,  and  main- 
taining herself,  without  deviation,  in  a  track  so 
purely  rectilineal,  that  even  the  most  jealous  and 
microscopic  eye  could  not  find  in  it  the  slightest  ab- 
erration ;  this  is  the  justice  set  forth  by  our  great 
moral  Teacher  in  the  passage  now  submitted  to 
you;  and  by  which  we  are  told,  that  this  virtue  re- 
fuses fellowship  with  every  degree  of  iniquity  that 
is  perceptible  ;  and  that,  were  the  very  least  act  of 
unfaithfulness  admitted,  she  would  feel  as  il"  in  her 
sanctity  she  had  violated,  as  if  in  her  character  she 
had  sustained  an  overthrow. 

Jn  the  further  prosecution  of  this  discourse,  let 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  85 

us  first  attempt  to  elucidate  the  priiiciple  of  our 
text,  and  then  urge  it  onward  to  its  practical  con- 
sequences— both  as  it  respects  our  general  relation 
to  God,  and  as  it  respects  the  particular  lesson  of 
faithfulness  that  may  be  educed  from  it. 

I.  The  great  principle  of  the  text  is,  that  he  who 
has  sinned,  though  to  a  small  amount  in  respect  of 
the  fruit  of  his  transgression — provided  he  has 
done  so,  by  passing  over  a  forbidden  limit  which 
was  distinctly  known  to  him,  has,  in  the  act  of  do- 
ing so,  incurred  a  full  condemnation  in  respect  o 
the  principle  of  his  transgression.  In  one  word, 
that  the  gain  of  it  may  be  small,  while  the  guilt  of 
it  may  be  great ;  that  the  latter  ought  not  to  be 
measured  by  the  former ;  but  that  he  who  is  un- 
faithful  in  the  least,  shall  be  dealt  with,  in  respect 
of  the  offence  he  has  given  to  God,  in  the  same 
way  as  if  he  had  been  unfaithful  in  much. 

The  first  reason  which  we  would  assign  in  vindi- 
cation of  this  is,  that  by  a  small  act  of  injustice,  the 
line  which  separates  the  right  from  the  wrong,  is 
just  as  effectually  broken  over  as  by  a  great  act  of 
injustice.  There  is  a  tendency  in  gross  and  cor- 
poreal man  to  rate  the  criminality  of  injustice  by 
the  amount  of  its  appropriations — to  reduce  it  to 
a  computation  of  weight  and  of  measure — to  count 
the  man  who  has  gained  a  double  sum  by  his  dis- 
honesty, to  be  doubly  more  dishonest  than  his 
neighbour — to  make  it  an  affair  of  product  rather 
tjian  of  principle  ;   and  thus  to  weigh  the  morality 

8 


S6  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

of  a  character  in  the  same  arithmetical  balance 
with  number  or  with  magnitude.  Now,  this  is  not 
the  rule  of  calculation  on  which  oui  Saviour  has 
proceeded  in  the  text.  He  speaks  to  the  man  who 
is  only  half  an  inch  within  the  limit  of  forbidden 
ground,  in  the  very  same  terms  by  which  he  ad- 
dresses the  man  who  has  made  the  furthest  and  the 
largest  incursions  upon  it.  It  is  true,  that  he  is 
only  a  little  way  upon  the  wrong  side  of  the  line  of 
demarcation.  But  why  is  he  upon  it  at  all  ?  It 
was  in  the  act  of  crossing  that  line,  and  not  in  the 
act  of  going  onwards  after  he  had  crossed  it — it  was 
then  that  the  contest  between  right  and  wrong  was 
entered  upon,  and  then  it  was  decided.  That  was 
the  instant  of  time  at  which  principle  struck  her 
surrender.  The  great  pull  which  the  man  had  to 
make,  was  in  the  act  of  overleaping  the  fence  of 
separation  ;  and  after  that  was  done,  justice  had  no 
other  barrier  by  which  to  obstruct  his  progress 
over  the  whole  extent  of  the  field  which  she  had  in- 
terdicted. There  might  be  barriers  of  a  different 
description.  There  might  be  still  a  revolting  of 
humanity  against  the  sufferings  that  would  be  in- 
flicted by  an  act  of  larger  fraud  or  depredation* 
There  might  be  a  dread  of  exposure,  if  the  dishon- 
esty should  so  swell,  in  point  of  amount,  as  to  be- 
come more  noticeable.  There  might,  after  the  ab- 
solute limit  between  justice  and  injustice  is  broken, 
be  another  limit  against  the  extending  of  a  man's 
encroachments,  in  a  terror  of  discovery,  or  in  a 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  87 

sense  of  interest,  or  even  in  the  relentings  of  a  kind- 
ly or  a  cornpunctuous  feeling  towards  him  who  is 
the  victim  of  injustice.  But  this  is  not  the  limit 
with  which  the  question  of  a  man's  truth,  or  a 
man's  honesty  has  to  do.  These  have  already 
been  given  up.  He  may  only  be  a  little  way  with- 
in the  margin  of  the  unlawful  territory,  but  still  he 
is  upon  it ;  and  the  God  who  tinds  him  there  will 
reckon  with  him,  and  deal  with  him  accordingly. 
Other  principles,  and  other  considerations,  may  re- 
strain his  progress  to  the  very  heart  of  the  territo- 
ry, but  justice  is  not  one  of  them.  This  he  delibe- 
'rately  tiung  away  from  him,  at  that  moment  when 
he  passed  the  line  of  circumvailation ;  and  though 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  that  line,  he  may  hover  all 
his  days  at  the  petty  work  of  picking  and  purloin- 
ing such  fragments  as  he  meets  with,  though  he  may 
never  venture  himself  to  a  place  of  more  daring 
or  distinguished  atrocity,  God  sees  of  him,  that,  in 
respect  of  the  principle  of  justice,  at  least,  there  is 
an  utter  unhingement.  And  thus  it  is,  that  the 
Saviour,  who  knew  what  was  in  man,  and  wdio, 
therefore,  knew  all  the  springs  of  that  moral  ma- 
chinery by  which  he  is  actuated,  pronounces  of 
him  who  was  unfaithful  in  the  least,  that  he  was 
unfaithful  also  in  much. 

After  the  transition  is  accomplished,  the  progress 
will  follow  of  course,  just  as  opportunity  invites,  and 
just  as  circumstances  make  it  safe  and  practicable. 
For  it  is  not  with  justice  as  it  is  with  generosityj  and 


88  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

some  of  the  other  virtues.  There  is  not  the  same 
graduation  in  the  former  as  there  is  in  the  latter. 
The  man  who,  other  circumstances  being  equal, 
gives  away  a  double  sum  in  charity,  may,  with  more 
propriety,  be  reckoned  doubly  more  generous  than 
his  neighbour ;  than  the  man  who,  with  the  same 
equaiily  of  circumstances,  only  ventures  on  half  the 
extent  of  fraud  ulency,  can  be  reckoned  only  one 
half  as  unjust  as  his  neighbour.  Each  has  broken  a 
clear  line  of  demarcation.  Each  has  transgressed 
a  distinct  and  visible  hmit  which  he  knew  to  be  for- 
bidden. Each  has  knowingly  forced  a  passage  be- 
yond his  neighbour's  landmark — and  that  is  the 
place  where  justice  has  laid  the  main  force  of  her 
interdict.  As  it  respects  the  materiel  of  injustice, 
the  question  revolves  itself  into  a  mere  computation 
of  quantity.  As  it  respects  the  morale  of  injustice, 
the  computation  is  upon  other  principles.  It  is  up- 
on the  latter  that  our  Saviour  pronounces  himself. 
And  he  gives  us  to  understand,  that  a  very  humble 
degree  of  the  former  may  indicate  the  latter  in  all 
its  atrocity.  He  stands  on  the  breach  between  the 
lawful  and  the  unlawful  ;  and  he  tells  us,  that  the 
man  who  enters  by  a  single  footstep  on  the  forbid- 
den ground,  immediately  gathers  upon  his  person 
the  full  hue  and  character  of  guiltiness.  He  admits 
no  extenuation  of  the  lesser  acts  of  dishonesty.  He 
does  not  make  right  pass  into  wrong,  by  a  gradual 
melting  of  the  one  into  the  other.  He  does  not 
thus  obliterate  tlie  distinctions  of  morality.     There 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  89 

IS  no  shading  off  at  the  maro;in  of  guilt,  but  a  clear 
and  vigorous  delineation.  It  is  not  by  a  gentle  tran- 
sition that  a  man  steps  over  from  honesty  to  dishon- 
esty. There  is  between  them  a  wall  rising  up  unto 
heaven  ;  and  the  high  authority  of  heaven  must  be 
stormed  ere  one  inch  of  entrance  can  be  made  into 
the  region  of  iniquity.  The  morality  of  the  Sa- 
viour never  leads  him  to  gloss  over  the  beginnings 
of  crime.  His  object  ever  is,  as  in  the  text  before 
us,  to  fortify  the  limit,  to  cast  a  rampart  of  exclu- 
sion around  the  whole  territory  of  guilt,  and  to  rear 
it  before  the  eye  of  man  in  such  characters  of 
strength  and  sacredness,  as  should  make  them  feel 
that  it  is  impregnable. 

The  second  reason,  why  he  who  is  unfaithful  in 
the  least  has  incurred  the  condemnation  of  him  who 
is  unfaithful  in  much,  is,  that  the  littleness  of  the 
gain,  so  far  from  giving  a  littleness  to  the  guilt,  is  in 
facta  circumstance  of  aggravation.  There  is  just 
this  difference.  He  who  has  committed  injustice 
for  the  sake  of  a  less  advantage,  has  done  it  on  the 
impulse  of  a  less  temptation.  He  has  parted  with 
his  honesty  at  an  inferior  price  ;  and  this  circum- 
stance may  go  so  to  equalize  the  estimate,  as  to 
bring  it  very  much  to  one  with  the  deliverance,  in 
the  text,  of  our  great  Teacher  of  righteousness. 
The  limitation  between  good  and  evil  stood  as  dis- 
tinctly before  the  notice  of  the  small  as  of  the  great 
depradator;  and  he  has  just  made  as  direct  a  con- 
travention  to  the  first  reason,  when  he  passed  over 

8* 


?)0  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

upon  the  wrong  side  of  it.  And  he  may  have  made 
little  of  gain  by  the  enterprise,  but  this  does  not  al- 
lay the  guilt  of  it.  Nay,  by  the  second  reason,  this 
may  serve  to  aggravate  the  wrath  of  the  Divinity 
against  him.  It  proves  how  small  the  price  is 
which  he  sets  upon  his  eternity,  and  how  cheaply 
he  can  bargain  the  favour  of  God  away  from  him, 
and  how  low  he  rates  the  good  of  an  inheritance 
with  him,  and  for  what  a  trifle  he  can  dispose  of  all 
interest  in  his  kingdom  and  in  his  promises.  The 
very  circumstance  which  gives  to  his  character  a 
milder  transgression  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  makes 
it  more  odious  in  the  judgment  of  the  sanctuary. 
The  more  paltry  it  is  in  respect  of  profit,  the  more 
profane  it  may  be  in  respect  of  principle.  It  likens 
him  the  more  to  profane  Esau,  who  sold  his  birth- 
right for  a  mess  of  pottage.  And  thus  it  is,  indeed, 
most  woful  to  think  of  such  a  senseless  and  aliena- 
ted world  ;  and  how  heedlessly  the  men  of  it  are 
posting  their  infatuated  way  to  destruction  •,  and 
how,  for  as  little  gain  as  might  serve  them  a  day, 
they  are  contracting  as  much  guilt  as  will  ruin  them 
forever  ;  and  are  profoundly  asleep  in  the  midst  of 
such  designs  and  such  doings,  as  will  form  the  valid 
materials  of  their  entire  and  everlasting  condemna- 
tion. 

It  is  with  argument  such  as  this  that  we  would 
try  to  strike  conviction  among  a  very  numerous  class 
of  offenders  in  society — those  who,  in  the  various 
departments  of  trust,  or  service,  or  agency,  are  ever 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  91 

practising,  in  littles,  at  the  work  of  secret  appro- 
priation— those  whose  hands  are  in  a  state  of  con- 
stant defilement,  by  the  putting  of  them  forth  to 
that  which  they  ought  to  touch  not,  and  taste  not, 
and  handle  not — those  who  silently  number  such 
pilferments  as  can  pass  unnoticed  among  the 
perquisites  of  their  office  ;  and  who,  by  an  excess 
in  their  charges,  just  so  slight  as  to  escape  detection 
— or  by  a  habit  of  purloining,  just  so  restrained  as 
to  elude  discovery,  have  both  a  conscience  very 
much  at  ease  in  their  own  bosoms,  and  a  credit  very 
fair,  and  very  entire,  among  their  acquaintances 
around  them.  They  grossly  count  upon  the  small- 
ness  of  their  transgression.  But  they  are  just  going 
in  a  small  way,  to  hell.  They  would  recoil  with 
violent  dislike  from  the  act  of  a  midnight  depreda- 
tor. It  is  just  because  terrors,  and  trials,  and  exe- 
cutions, have  thrown  around  it  the  pomp  and  cir- 
cumstances of  guilt.  But  at  another  bar,  and  on  a 
day  of  more  dreadful  solemnity,  their  guilt  will  be 
made  to  stand  out  in  its  essential  characters,  and 
their  condemnation  will  be  pronounced  from  the 
lips  of  Him  who  judgeth  righteously.  They  feel 
that  they  have  incurred  no  outrageous  forfeiture  of 
character  among  men,  and  this  instils  a  treacherous 
complacency  into  their  own  hearts.  But  the  pier- 
cing eye  of  llim  who  looketh  down  from  Heaven  is 
upon  the  reaiily  of  the  question  ;  and  He  wbo  pon- 
ders the  secrets  of  every  bos^om,  can  perceive,  tl.at 
the  man  who  recoils  only  from  such  a  degree  of  in- 


92  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

justice  as  is  notorious,  may  have  no  justice  whatever 
in  his  character.     He  may  have  a  sense  of  reputa- 
tion.    He  may  have  the  fear  of  detection  and  dis- 
grace.    He  may  feel  a  revolt  in  his    constitution 
against  the  magnitude  of  a  gross  and  glaring  viola- 
tion.    He  may  even  share  in  all  the  feelings  and 
principles  of  that   conventional  kind    of  morality 
which  obtains  in  his  neighbourhood.     But,  of  that 
principle  which  is  surrendered  by  the   least  act  of 
unfaithfulness,  he  has  no  share  whatever.     He  per- 
ceives no  overawing  sacredness  in  that  boundary 
which  separates  the  right  from  the  wrong.     If  he 
only  keep  decently  near,  it  is  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence to  him  whether  he  be  on  this  or  on  that  side  of 
it.     He  can  be  unfaithful   in  that  which  is  least. 
There  may  be  other  principles,  and  other  consider- 
ations, to  restrain  him  ;  but  certain  it  is,  that  it  is 
not  now  the  principle  ofjustice  which  restrains  him 
from  being  unfaithful  in  much.     This  is  given  up  ; 
and,  through  a  blindness  to  the  great  and  important 
principle  of  our  text,  this  virtue  may,  in  its  essental 
character,  be  as  good  as  banished  from  the  world. 
All  its  protections  may  be  utterly  overthrown.    The 
line  of  defence  is  effaced  by  which  it  ought, to  have 
been  firmly  and  scrupulously  guarded.     The  sign- 
posts of  intimation,  which  ought  to  Avarn  and  to  scare 
away,  are  planted  along  the  barrier  ;  and  when  in 
defiance  to  them,  the  barrier  is  broken,  man  will 
not  be  checked  by  any  sense  of  honesty,  at  least, 
from  expatiating  over  the  whole  of  the  forbiddeB 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  93 

territory.  And  thus  may  we  gather  from  the  count- 
less peccadilloes  which  are  so  current  in  the  vari- 
ous departments  of  trade,  and  service,  and  agency 
— from  the  secret  freedoms  in  which  many  do  in- 
dulge, without  one  remonstrance  from  their  own 
hearts — from  the  petty  inroads  that  are  daily  prac- 
tised on  the  confines  of  justice,  by  which  its  line  of 
demarcation  is  trodden  under  foot,  and  it  has  lost 
the  moral  distinctness,  and  the  moral  charm,  that 
should  have  kept  it  unviolate — from  the  exceedmg 
multitude  of  such  offences  as  are  frivolous  in  res- 
pect of  the  matter  of  them,  but  most  fearfully  im- 
portant in  respect  of  the  principle  in  which  they 
originate — from  the  woful  amount  of  that  unseen 
and  unrecorded  guilt  which  escapes  the  cognizance 
of  human  law,  but,  on  the  application  of  the  touch- 
stone in  our  text,  may  be  made  to  stand  out  in  char- 
acters of  severest  condemnation — from  instances, 
too  numerous  to  repeat,  but  certainly  too  obvious 
to  be  missed,  even  by  the  observation  of  charity, 
may  we  gather  the  frailty  of  human  principle,  and 
the  virulence  of  that  moral  poison,  which  is  now  in 
such  full  circulation  to  taint  and  to  adulterate  the 
character  of  our  species. 

Before  finishing  this  branch  of  our  subject,  we 
may  observe,  that  it  is  with  this,  as  with  many  other 
phenomena  of  the  human  character,  that  we  are  not 
long  in  contemplation  upon  it,  without  coming  in 
sight  of  (hat  great  characteristic  of  fallen  man, 
which  meets  and  forces  itself  upon  us  in  every  view 


94  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

that  we  take  of  him — even  the  great  moral  disease 
of  ungodliness.  It  is  atthe  precise  limit  between  the 
right  and  the  wrong  that  the  flaming  sword  of  God's 
law  is  placed.  It  is  there  that  "  Thus  saith  the 
Lord''  presents  itself,  in  legible  characters,  to  our 
view.  It  is  there  where  the  operation  of  his  com- 
mandment begins  ;  and  not  at  any  of  those  higher 
2;radations,  where  a  man's  dishonesty  first  appals 
himself  by  the  chance  of  its  detection,  or  ap}>als 
others  by  the  mischief  and  insecurity  which  it  hririgs 
upon^ social  life.  An  extensive  fraud  upon  the  rev- 
enue, for  example,  unpopular  as  this  branch  of  jus- 
tice is,  would  bring  a  man  down  from  his  place  of 
eminence  and  credit  in  mercantile  society.  That 
petty  fraud  which  is  associated  with  so  many  of  those 
smaller  payments,  where  a  lie  in  the  written  ac- 
knowledgment is  both  given  and  accepted,  as  a  way 
of  escape  from  the  legal  imposition,  circulates  at 
large  among  the  members  of  the  great  trading  com- 
munity. In  the  former,  and  in  all  the  greater  cases 
of  injustice,  there  is  a  human  restraint,  and  a  human 
terror,  in  operation.  There  is  disgrace  and  civil 
punishment  to  scare  away.  There  are  all  the 
sanctions  of  that  conventional  morality  which  is 
suspended  on  the  fear  of  man,  and  the  opinion  of 
man  ;  and  which,  without  so  much  as  the  recogni- 
tion of  a  God,  would  naturally  point  its  armour  a- 
gainst  every  outrage  that  could  sensibly  disturb  the 
securities  and  the  rights  of  human  society.  But  so 
long  as  the  disturbance  is  not  sensible — so  long  a* 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  95 

the  injustice  keeps  within  the  limits  of  smallness  and 
secrecy — so  ioni>  as  it  is  safe  for  the  individual  to 
practise  it,  and,  borne  alojig  on  the  tide  of  general 
example  and  connivance,  he  has  nothing  to  restrain 
him  but  that  distinct  and  inilexible  word  of  God, 
which  proscribes  all  unfaithfuhiess,  and  admits  of  it 
in  no  degrees,  and  no.  modifications — then,  let  the 
almost  universal  sleep  of  conscience  attest,  how  lit- 
tle of  God  there  is  in  the  virtue  of  this  world  ;  and 
how  much  the  peace  and  the  protection  of  society 
are  owing  to  such  moralities,  as  the  mere  selfishness 
of  man  would  lead  him  to  ordain,  even  in  a  commu- 
nity of  atheists. 

II.  Let  us  now  attempt  to  unfold  a  few  of  the 
practical  consequences  that  may  be  drawn  from  the 
principle  of  the  text,  both  in  respect  to  our  general 
relation  with  God,  and  in  respect  to  the  particular 
lesson  of  faithfulness  which  may  be  educed  from  it. 

1.  There  cannot  be  a  stronger  possible  illustra- 
tion of  our  argument,  than  the  very  first  act  of  re- 
tribution that  occurred  in  the  history  of  our  species. 
"  And  God  said  unto  Adam,  Of  the  tree  of  the 
knov/ledge  of  good  and  evil,  thou  shalt  not  eat  of  it. 
For  in  the  day  thou  eatest  thereof,  thou  shalt  surely 
die.  But  the  woman  took  of  the  fruit  thereof,  and 
did  eat,  and  gave  also  unto  her  husband  with  her, 
and  he  did  eat."  What  is  it  that  invests  the  eating 
of  a  solitary  apple  with  a  grandeur  so  momentous  ? 
How  came  an  action  in  itself  so  minute,  to  be  the 
germe  of  such  mighty  consequences  ?  flow  are  we 


96  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES, 

to  understand  that  our  first  parents,  by  the  doing  ol 
a  single  instant,  not  only  brought  death  upon  them- 
selves, but  shed  this  big  and  baleful  disaster  over  all 
their  posterity  ?  We  may  not  be  able  to  ai  svver  all 
these  questions,  but  we  may  at  least  learn,  what  a 
thing  of  danger  it  is,  under  the  government  of  a  holy 
and  inflexible  God,  to  tamper  with  the  limits  of  obe- 
dience.    By  the  eating  of  that  apple  a  clear  re- 
quirement was  broken,  and  a  distinct  transition  was 
made  from  loyalty  to  rebellion,  and  an  entrance 
was  effected  into  the  region  of  sin — and  thus  did 
this  one  act  serve  like  the  opening  of  a  gate  for  a 
torrent  of  mighty  mischief;  and,  if  the  act   itself 
was  a  trifle,  it  just  went  to  aggravate  its  guilt — that, 
for  such  a  trifle,  the  authority  of  God  could  be  des- 
pised and  trampled  on.     At  all  events,  his  attribute 
of  Truth  stood  committed  to  the  fulfilment  of  the 
threatening  ;    and  the    very  insignificancy   of  the 
deed,  which  provoked  the  execution  of  it,  gives  a 
sublimer  character  to  the  certainty  of  the  fulfilment. 
We  know  how  much  this    trait,  in  the  dealings  of 
God  with  man,  has  been  the  jeer  of  infidelity.     But 
in  all  this  ridicule,  there  is  truly  nothing  else  than 
the  grossness  of  materialism.     Had  Adam,  instead 
of  plucking  one  single  apple  from  the  forbidden 
tree,  been  armed  with  the  power  of  a  malignant 
spirit,  and  spread  a  wanton  havock  over  the  face  of 
paradise,  and  spoiled  the  garden   of  its  lovehness, 
and  been  able  to  mar  and  to   deform  the  whole  of 
that  terrestrial  creation  over  which  God  had  so  re» 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  97 

cenlly  rejoiced — the  punishment  he  sustained  would 
have  looked,  to  these  arithnnetical  morahsts,  a  more 
adequate  return  for  the  offence  of  which  he  had 
been  guilty.  1  hey  cannot  see  how  the  moral  les- 
son rises  in  greatness,  just  in  proportion  to  the  hu- 
mility of  the  material  accompaniments — and  how 
it  wraps  a  sublimer  glory  around  the  holiness  of 
the  Godhead — and  how  from  the  transaction,  such 
as  it  is,  the  conclusion  cometh  forth  more  nakedly, 
and,  therefore,  more  impressively,  that  it  is  an  evil 
and  a  bitter  thing  to  sin  against  (he  Lawgiver. — • 
God  said,  "  Let  there  be  light,  and  it  was  hght ;" 
and  it  has  ever  been  regarded  as  a  sublime  token  of 
the  Deity,  that,  from  an  utterance  so  simple,  an 
accomplishment  so  quick  and  so  magnificent  should 
have  followed.  God  said,  "  That  he  who  eateth  of 
the  tree  in  the  midst  of  the  garden  should  die." 
It  appears,  indeed,  but  a  little  thing,  that  one  should 
put  forth  his  hand  to  an  apple  and  taste  of  it.  But 
a  saying  of  God  was  involved  in  the  matter — and 
heaven  and  earth  must  pass  aw^ay,  ere  a  saying  of 
his  can  pass  away ;  and  so  the  apple  became  deci- 
sive of  the  fate  of  a  world  ;  and,  out  of  the  very 
scantiness  of  the  occasion,  did  there  emerge  a  sub- 
limer display  of  truth  and  of  holiness.  The  begin- 
ning of  the  world  was,  indeed,  the  period  of  great 
manifestations  of  the  Godhead  ;  and  they  all  seem 
to  accord,  in  style  and  character,  with  each  other; 
and  in  that  very  history,  which  has  called  forth  the 
profane  and  unthinking  levity  of  many  a  scorner 

9 


98  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

may  we  behold  as  much  of  the  majesty  of  principle, 
as  in  the  creation  of  light,  we  behold  of  the  majesty 
of  power.  But  this  history  furnishes  the  materials 
of  a  contemplation  still  more  practical.  If  for  this 
one  offence,  Adam  and  his  posterity  have  been  so 
visited — if  so  rigorously  and  so  inflexibly  precise  be 
the  spirit  of  God's  administration — if,  under  the 
economy  of  heaven,  sin,  even  in  the  very  humb- 
lest of  its  exhibitions,  be  the  object  of  an  intoler- 
ance so  jealous  and  so  unrelenting — if  the  Deity 
be  such  as  this  transaction  manifest  him  to  be,  dis- 
dainful of  fellowship  even  with  the  very  least  ini- 
quity, and  dreadful  in  the  certainty  of  all  his  ac- 
compHshments  against  it — if,  for  a  single  transgres- 
sion, all  the  promise  and  all  the  felicity  of  paradise 
had  to  be  broken  up,  and  the  wretched  offenders 
had  to  be  turned  abroad  upon  a  world,  now  chang- 
ed by  the  curse  into  a  wilderness,  and  their  secure 
and  lovely  home  of  innocence  behoved  to  be  aban- 
doned, and  to  keep  them  out  a  flaming  sword  had 
to  turn  every  way,  and  guard  their  reaccess  to  the 
bowers  of  immortality — if  sin  be  so  very  hateful  in 
the  eye  of  unspotted  holiness,  that,  on  its  very  first 
act,  and  first  appearance,  the  wonted  communion 
between  heaven  and  earth  was  interdicted — if  that 
was  the  time  at  which  God  looked  on  our  species 
with  an  altered  countenance,  and  one  deed  of  dis- 
obedience proved  so  terribly  decisive  of  the  fate 
and  history  of  a  world — what  should  each  individu- 
al amongst  us  think  of  his  own  danger,  whose  life 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  99 

has  been  one  continued  habit  of  disobedience  ?  If 
we  be  still  in  the  hands  of  that  God  who  laid  so  fell 
a  condemnation  on  this  one  transgression,  let  us 
just  think  of  our  many  transgressions,  and  that  eve- 
ry hour  we  live  multiplies  the  account  of  them  ; 
and  that,  however  they  may  vanish  from  our  re- 
membrance, they  are  still  alive  in  the  records  of  a 
judge  whose  e.ye  and  whose  memory  never  fail  him. 
Let  us  transfer  the  lesson  we  have  gotten  of  heav- 
en's jurisprudence  from  the  case  of  our  first  ]jar- 
ents  to  our  own  case.  Let  us  compare  our  lives 
with  the  law  of  God,  and  we  shall  find  that  our  sins 
are  past  reckoning.  Let  us  take  account  of  the 
habitual  posture  of  our  souls,  as  a  posture  of  dis- 
like for  the  things  that  are  above,  as  we  shall  find 
that  our  thouiihts  and  our  desires  are  ever  runninj>- 
in  one  current  of  sinfulness.  Let  us  just  make  the 
computation  how  often  we  fail  in  the  bidden  chari- 
ty, and  the  bidden  godliness,  and  the  bidden  long 
suffering — all  as  clearly  bidden  as  the  duty  that  was 
laid  on  our  first  parents — and  we  shall  find,  that  we 
are  borne  down  under  a  mountain  of  iniquity  ;  that, 
in  the  language  of  the  Psalmist,  our  transgressions 
have  gone  over  our  heads,  and,  as  a  heavy  burden, 
are  too  heavy  for  us  ;  and  if  we  be  indeed  under 
the  government  of  Him  who  followed  up  the  offence 
of  the  stolen  apple  by  so  dreadful  a  chastisoment, 
then  is  wrath  gone  out  unto  the  uttermost  against 
every  one  of  us.  'i'here  is  something  in  the  histo- 
ry of  that  apple  which  might  be   brou;iht  specially 


100  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSED. 

to  bear  on  the  case  of  those  small  sinners  who  prac- 
tise in  secret  at  the  work  of  their  petty  depreda- 
tions. But  it  also  carries  in  it  a  great  and  a  uni- 
versal moral.  It  tells  us  that  no  sin  is  small.  It 
serves  a  general  purpose  of  conviction.  It  holds 
out  a  most  alarming  disclosure  oi  the  charge  that  is 
against  us  :  and  makes  it  manifest  to  the  conscience 
of  him  who  is  awakened  thereby,  that,  unless  God 
himself  point  out  a  way  of  escape,  we  are  indeed 
most  hopelessly  sunk  in  condemnation.  And,  see- 
ing that  such  wrath  went  out  from  the  sanctuary  of 
this  unchangeable  God,  on  the  one  offence  of  our 
first  parents,  it  irresistably  follows,  that  if  we,  man- 
ifold in  guilt,  take  not  ourselves  to  his  appointed 
way  of  reconciliation — if  we  refuse  the  overtures 
of  Him,  who  then  so  visited  the  one  offence  through 
which  all  are  dead,  but  is  now  laying  before  us  all 
that  free  gift,  which  is  of  many  offences  unto  justi- 
fication— in  other  words,  if  we  will  not  enter  into 
peace  through  the  offered  Mediator,  how  much 
greater  must  be  the  wrath  that  abideth  on  us  ? 

Nov*^,  let  the  sinner  have  his  conscience  schooled 
by  such  a  contemplation,  and  there  will  be  no  rest 
whatever  for  his  soul  till  he  find  it  in  the  Saviour. 
Let  him  only  learn,  from  the  dealings  of  God  with 
the  first  Adam,  what  a  God  of  holiness  he  himself 
has  to  deal  with  ;  and  let  him  further  learn,  from 
the  history  of  the  second  Adam,  that  to  manifest 
himself  as  a  God-of  love^  another  righteousness  had 
to  be  brought  in,  in  place  of  that  from  which  maa 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  101 

had  fallen  so  utterly  away.  There  was  a  faultless 
obedience  rendered  by  Him,  of  whom  it  is  said,  that 
he  fulfilled  all  righteousness.  There  was  a  magni- 
fying of  the  law  by  one  in  human  form,  who  up  to 
the  last  jot  and  tittle  of  it,  acquitted  himself  of  all 
its  obligations.  There  was  a  pure,  and  lofty,  and 
undedled  path,  trodden  by  a  holy  and  harmless 
Being,  who  gave  not  up  his  work  upon  earth,  till 
ere  he  left  it  he  could  cry  out,  that  it  was  finished  ; 
and  so  had  wrought  out  for  us  a  perfect  righteous- 
ness. Now,  it  forms  the  most  prominent  annunci- 
ation of  the  New-Testament,  that  the  reward  of 
this  righteousness  is  offered  unto  all — so  that  there 
is  not  one  of  us  who  is  not  put  by  the  gospel  upon 
the  alternative  of  being  either  tried  by  our  own  mer- 
its, or  treated  according  to  the  merits  of  Him  who 
became  sin  for  us,  though  he  knew  no  sin,  that  we 
might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in  him. 
Let  the  sinner  just  look  unto  himself,  and  look  unto 
the  Saviour.  Let  him  advert  not  to  his  one,  but 
to  his  many  offences  ;  and  that,  too,  in  the  sight  of 
a  God,  who,  but  for  one  so  slight  and  so  insignificant 
in  respect  of  the  outward  description,  as  the  eating 
of  a  forbidden  apple,  threw  off  a  world  into  banish- 
ment and  entailed  a  sentence  of  death  upon  all  its 
generations.  Let  him  learn  from  this,  that  for  sin 
even  in  its  humblest  degrees,  there  exists  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Godhead  no  toleration  ;  and  how  shall 
he  dare,  with  the  degree  and  the  frequency  of  his 
own  sin,  to  *land  any  longer  on  a  ground,  where,  if 

9  * 


102  CHALMERS*  DISCOURSES. 

he  remain,  the  fierceness  of  a  consuming  fire  is  so 
sure  to  overtake  him  ?  The  righteousness  of  Christ 
is  without  a  flaw,  and  there  he  is  invited  to  take 
shelter.  Under  the  actual  regimen,  which  God 
has  estabhshed  in  our  world,  it  is  indeed  his  only 
security — his  refuge  from  the  tempest,  and  hiding 
place  from  the  storm.  The  only  beloved  son  offers 
to  spread  his  own  unspotted  garment  as  a  protection 
over  him;  and,  if  he  be  rightly  alive  to  the  utter 
nakedness  of  his  moral  and  spiritual  condition,  he 
will  indeed  make  no  tarrying  till  he  be  found  in 
Christ,  and  find  that  in  him  there  is  no  condemna- 
tion. 

Now,  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  those  princi- 
ples, which  shut  a  man  up  unto  the  faith,  do  not 
take  flight  and  abandon  him,  after  they  have  served 
this  temporary  purpose.  They  abide  with  him,  and 
work  their  appropriate  influence  on  his  character, 
and  serve  as  the  germe  of  a  new  moral  creation  ; 
and  we  can  afterwards  detect  their  operation  in  his 
heart  and  life  ;  so,  that  if  they  were  present  at  the 
formation  of  a  saving  belief,  they  are  not  less  un- 
failingly present  with  every  true  Christian,  through- 
out the  whole  of  his  future  history,  as  the  elements 
of  a  renovated  conduct.  If  it  was  sensibility  to  the 
evil  of  sin  which  helped  to  wean  the  man  from  him- 
self, and  led  him  to  his  Saviour,  this  sensibility  does 
not  fall  asleep  in  the  bosom  of  an  awakened  sinner, 
after  Christ  has  given  him  light — but  it  grows  with 
the  growth,  and  strengthens  with  the  strength,  of 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  10^ 

his  Christianity.  If,  at  the  interesting  period  of 
his  transition  from  nature  to  grace,  he  saw,  even  in 
the  very  least  of  his  offences,  a  deadly  provocation 
of  the  Lawgiver,  he  does  not  lose  sight  of  this  con- 
sideration in  his  future  progress — nor  does  it  barely 
remain  with  him,  like  one  of  the  unproductive  no- 
tions of  an  inert  and  unproductive  theory.  It  gives 
rise  to  a  fearful  jealousy  in  his  heart  of  the  least 
appearance  of  evil  ;  and,  with  every  man  who  has 
undergone  a  genuine  process  of  conversion,  do  we 
behold  the  scrupulous  avoidance  of  sin,  in  its  most 
slender,  as  well  as  in  its  more  aggravated  forms.  If 
it  was  the  perfection  of  the  character  of  Christ,  who 
felt  that  it  became  him  to  fulfil  all  righteousness, 
that  offered  him  the  first  solid  foundation  on  which 
he  could  lean — then,  the  same  character,  which 
first  drew  his  eye  for  the  purpose  of  confidence, 
still  continues  to  draw  his  eye  for  the  purpose  of 
imitation.  At  the  outset  of  faith,  all  the  essential 
moralities  of  thought,  and  feeling,  and  conviction, 
are  in  play ;  nor  is  there  any  thing  in  the  progress 
of  a  real  faith  which  is  calculated  to  throw  them 
back  again  into  the  dormancy  out  of  which  they 
had  arisen.  They  break  out,  in  fact,  into  more  full 
and  flourishing  display  on  every  new  creature,  with 
every  new  step,  and  new  evolution,  in  his  mental 
history.  All  the  principles  of  the  gospel  serve,  as 
it  were,  to  fan  and  to  perpetuate  his  hostility  against 
sin  ;  and  all  the  powers  of  the  gospel  enable  him, 
more  and  more,  to  fulfil  the  desires  of  his  heart,  and 


104  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

to  carry  his  purposes  of  hostility  into  execution, 
Tn  the  case  of  every  genuine  behever,  who  walks 
not  after  the  flesh,  but  after  the  spirit,  do  we  behold 
a  fulfilling  of  the  righteousness  of  the  law — a  stren- 
uous avoidance  of  sin,  in  its  slightest  possible  taint 
or  modification — a  strenuous  performance  of  duty, 
up  to  the  last  jot  and  tittle  of  its  exactions — so,  that 
let  the  untrue  professors  of  the  faith  do  what  they 
will  in  the  way  of  antinomianism,  and  let  the  ene^- 
mies  of  the  faith  say  what  they  will  about  our  anti- 
nomianism, the  real  spirit  of  the  dispensation  under 
which  we  live  is  such,  that  whosoever  shall  break 
one  of  the  least  of  these  commandments,  and  teach 
men  so,  is  accounted  the  least — whosoever  shall  do 
and  teach  them  is  accounted  the  greatest. 

2.  Let  us,  therefore,  urge  the  spirit  and  the  prac- 
tice of  this  lesson  upon  your  observation.  The 
place  for  the  practice  of  it  is  the  familiar  and  week- 
day scene.  The  principle  for  the  spirit  of  it  de- 
scends upon  the  heart,  from  the  sublimest  heights 
of  the  sanctuary  of  God.  It  is  not  vulgarizing 
Christianity  to  bring  it  down  to  the  very  humblest 
occupations  of  human  lile.  It  is,  in  fact,  dignifying 
human  life,  by  bringing  it  up  to  the  level  of  Christi- 
anity. It  may  look  to  some  a  degradation  of  the 
pulpit,  when  the  household  servant  is  told  to  make 
her  firm  stand  against  the  temptation  of  open  doors 
and  secret  opportunities  ;  or  when  the  confidential 
agent  is  told  to  resist  the  slightest  inclination  to  any 
unseen  freedom  with  the  property  of  his  employers, 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  105 

or  to  any  undiseovcrable  excess  in  the  charges  of 
his  management; ;  or  when  the  receiver  of  a  humble 
payment  is  told,  that  the  tribute  which  is  due  on 
every  written  acknowledgment  ought  faithfully  to 
be  met,  and  not  fictitiously  to  be  evaded.  This  is 
not  robbing  religion  of  its  sacredncss,  but  spreading 
its  sacredness  over  the  face  of  society.  It  is  evan- 
gelizing human  life,  by  impregnating  its  minutest 
transactions  with  the  spirit  of  the  gospel.  It  is 
strengthening  the  wall  of  partition  between  sin  and 
obedience.  It  is  the  Teacher  of  Righteousness 
taking  his  stand  at  the  outpost  of  that  territory  which 
he  is  appointed  to  defend,  and  warning  his  hearers 
of  the  danger  that  lies  in  a  single  footstep  of  en- 
croachment. It  is  letting  them  know,  that  it  is  in 
the  act  of  stepping  over  the  limit,  that  the  sinner 
throws  the  gauntlet  of  his  defiance  against  the  au- 
thority of  God.  And  though  he  may  deceive  him- 
self with  the  imagination  that  his  soul  is  safe,  be- 
cause the  gain  of  his  injustice  is  small,  such  is  the 
God  with  whom  he  has  to  do,  that,  if  it  be  gain  to 
the  value  of  a  single  apple,  then,  within  the  compass 
of  so  small  an  outward  dimension,  may  as  much 
guilt  be  enclosed  as  that  which  hath  brought  death 
into  our  world,  and  carried  it  down  in  a  descending 
ruin  upon  all  its  generations. 

It  may  appear  a  very  little  thing,  when  you  are 
told  to  be  honest  in  little  matters  ;  when  the  servant 
is  told  to  keep  her  hand  from  every  one  article  about 
which  there  is  not  an  express  or  understood  allow- 


106  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

ance  on  the  part  other  superiors ;  when  the  dealer 
is  told  to  lop  off  the  excesses  of  that  minuter  frau- 
diylenc} ,  which  is  so  currently  practised  in  the  hum- 
ble walks  of  merchandise  ;  when  the  workman  is 
told  to  abstain  from  those  petty  reservations  of  the 
material  of  his  work,  for  which  he  is  said  to  have 
such  snug  and  ample  opportunity  ;  and  when,  with- 
out pronouncing  on  the  actual  extent  of  these  trans- 
gressions, all  are  told  to  be  faithful  in  that  which  is 
least,  else,  if  there  be  truth  in  our  text,  they  incur  the 
guilt  of  being  unfaithful  in  much.  It  may  be  thought, 
that  because  such  dishonesties  as  these  are  scarcely 
noticeable,  they  are  therefore  not  worthy  of  notice. 
But  it  is  just  in  the  proportion  of  their  being  unno- 
ticeable  by  the  human  eye,  that  it  is  religious  to  re- 
frain from  them.  These  are  the  cases  in  which  it 
will  be  seen,  whether  the  control  of  the  omniscience 
of  God  makes  up  for  the  control  of  human  observa- 
tion— in  which  the  sentiment,  that  thou  God  seest 
me,  should  carry  a  preponderance  through  all  the 
secret  places  of  a  man^s  history — in  which,  when 
every  earthly  check  of  an  earthly  morality  is  with- 
drawn, it  should  be  felt,  that  the  eye  of  God  is  up- 
on him,  and  that  the  judgment  of  God  is  in  reserve 
for  him.  To  him  who  is  gifted  with  a  true  discern- 
ment of  these  matters,  will  it  appear,  that  often,  in 
proportion  to  the  smallness  of  the  doings,  is  the  sa- 
credness  of  that  principle  which  causes  them  to  be 
done  with  integrity  ;  that  honesty  in  little  transac- 
tions, bears  upon  it  more  of  the  aspect  of  hohness^i 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  lOf 

than  honesty  in  great  ones  ;  that  the  man  of  deepest 
sensibihty  to  the  obligations  of  the  law,  is  he  who 
feels  the  quickening  of  moral  alarm  at  its  slightest 
violations  ;  that,  in  the  morality  of  grains  and  of 
scruples,  there  may  be  a  greater  tenderness  of  con- 
science, and  a  more  heaven-born  sanctity,  than  in 
that  larger  morality  which  flashes  broadly  and  ob- 
servably upon  the  world  ; — and  that  thus,  in  the 
faithfulness  of  the  household  maid,  or  of  the  appren- 
tice boy,  there  may  be  the  presence  of  a  truer  prin- 
ciple, than  there  is  in  the  more  conspicuous  trans- 
actions of  human  business — what  they  do,  being 
done,  not  vAth  eye-service — what  they  do,  being 
done  unto  the  Lord. 

And  here  we  may  remark,  that  nobleness  of  con- 
dition is  not  essential  as  a  school  for  nobleness  of 
character ;  nor  does  man  require  to  be  high  in  of- 
fice, ere  he  can  gather  around  his  person  the  worth 
and  the  lustre  of  a  high-minded  integrity.  It  is  de- 
lightful to  think,  that  humble  life  may  be  just  as 
rich  in  moral  grace,  and  moral  grandeur,  as  the  lof- 
tier places  of  society  ;  that  as  true  a  dignity  of  prin- 
ciple may  be  earned  by  him  who  in  homeliest  drudg- 
ery, plies  his  conscientious  task,  as  by  him  who 
stands  entrusted  with  the  fortunes  of  an  empire ; 
that  the  poorest  menial  in  the  land,  who  can  lift  a 
hand  unsoiled  by  the  pilferments  that  are  within  his 
reach,  may  have  achieved  a  victory  over  tempta- 
tion, to  the  full  as  honourable  as  tlie  proudest  pat- 
riot can  boast,  who  has  spurned  the  bribery  of  courts 


tm  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

away  from  him.  It  is  cheering  to  know,  from  the 
heavenly  judge  himself,  that  he  who  is  faithful  in 
the  least,  is  faithful  also  in  much  :  and  that  thus, 
among  the  lahours  of  the  held  and  of  the  work-shop, 
it  is  possible  for  the  peasant  to  be  as  bright  in  hon- 
our as  the  peer,  and  have  the  chivalry  of  as  much 
truth  and  virtue  to  adorn  him. 

And,  as  this  lesson  is  not  little  in  respect  of  prin- 
ciple, so  neither  is  it  little  in  respect  of  influence  on 
the  order  and  well-being  of  human  society.  He 
who  is  unjust  in  the  least,  is,  in  respect  of  guilt,  un- 
just also  in  much.  And  to  reverse  this  proposition, 
as  it  is  done  in  the  first  clause  of  our  text — he  who 
is  faithful  in  that  which  is  least,  is,  in  respect  both 
of  righteous  principle  and  of  actual  observation, 
faithful  also  in  much.  Who  is  the  man  to  whom  I 
would  most  readily  confide  the  whole  of  my  proper- 
ty ?  He  who  would  most  disdain  to  put  forth  an  in- 
jurious hand  on  a  single  farthing  of  it.  Who  is  the 
man  from  whom  I  would  have  the  least  dread  of  any 
unrighteous  encroachment  ?  He,  all  the  delicacies 
of  whose  principle  are  awakened,  when  he  comes 
within  sight  of  the  limit  which  separates  the  region 
of  justice  from  the  region  of  injustice.  Who  is  the 
man  whom  we  shall  never  find  among  the  greater 
degrees  of  iniquity?  He  who  shrinks  with  sacred 
abhorrence  from  the  lesser  degrees  of  it.  It  is  a 
true,  though  a  homely  maxim  of  economy,  that  if 
we  take  care  of  our  small  sums,  our  great  sums  will 
take  care  of  themselves,      /vnd,  to  pass  from  our 


CHALMERS^  DISCOURSES.  10^ 

own  things  to  the  things  of  others,  it  is  no  less  true, 
that  if  principle  should  lead  us  all  to  maintain  the 
care  of  strictest  honesty  ovfer  our  neighbour's  pen- 
nies, then  will  his  pounds  lie  secure  from  the  grasp 
of  injustice,  behind  the  barrier  of  a  moral  impossi- 
bility.    This  lesson,  if  carried  into  effect  among  you, 
would  so  strengthen  all  the  ramparts  of  security  be- 
tween man  and  man,  as  to  make  them  utterly  im- 
passable ;  and  therefore,  while,  in  the  matter  of  it, 
it  may  look,  in  one  view,  as  one  of  the  least  of  the 
commandments,  it,  in  regard  both  of  principle  and 
of  effect,  is,  in  another  view  of  it,  one  of  the  great- 
est of  the  commandments.     And  we  therefore  con- 
clude with  assuring  you,  that  nothing  will  spread  the 
principle  of  this  commandment  to  any  great  extent 
throughout  the  mass  of  society,  but  the  principle  of 
godliness.     Nothing  will  secure  the  general  obser- 
vation of  justice  amongst  us,  in  its  punctuality  and 
in  its  preciseness,  but  such  a  precise   Christianity 
as  many  affirm  to  be  puritanical.     In  other  words, 
the  virtues  of  society,  to  be  kept  in  a  healthful  and 
prosperous  condition,  must  be  upheld  by  the  virtues 
of  the  sanctuary.     Human  law  may  restrain  many 
of  the    grosser  violations.      But  w^ithout  religion 
among  the  people,  justice  will  never  be  in  exten- 
sive operation  as  a  moral  principle.      A  vast  pro- 
portion of  the  species  will  be  as  unjust  as  the  vigi- 
lance and  the  severities  of  law  allow  them  to  be. 
A  thousand  petty  dishonesties,  which  never  will, 
and  never  can  be  brought  within  the  cognizance  of 

10 


110  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

any  of  our  courts  of  administration,  will  still  contin- 
ue to  derange  the  business  of  human  life,  and  to  stir 
up  all  the  heartburnings  of  suspicion  and  resent- 
ment among  the  members  of  human  society.  And 
it  is,  indeed,  a  triumphant  reversion  awaiting  the 
Christianity  of  the  New  Testament,  when  it  shall 
become  manifest  as  day,  that  it  is  her  doctrine  alone, 
which,  by  its  searching  and  sanctifying  influence, 
can  so  moralise  our  world — as  that  each  may  sleep 
secure  in  the  lap  of  his  neighbour's  integrity,  and 
the  charm  of  confidence,  between  man  and  man, 
will  at  length  be  felt  in  the  business  of  every  town, 
and  in  the  bosom  of  every  family. 


DISCOURSE  V. 


ON  THE  GPvEAT  CHRISTIAN   LAW    OF    R£CIPilOCI= 
TY  BETWEEN  MAN  AND  MAN. 


*'  Therefore  all  things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do 
to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them  :  for  this  is  the  law  and  the 
projjhets." — Matt.  vii.  12. 

There  are  two  great  classes  in  human  society, 
between  whom  there  he  certain  mutual  claims  and 
obligations,  which  are  felt  by  some  to  be  of  very 
difficult  adjustment.  There  are  those  who  have 
requests  of  some  kind  or  other  to  make  ;  and  there 
are  those  to  whom  the  requests  are  made,  and  with 
whom  there  is  lodged  the  power  either  to  grant  or 
to  refuse  them.  Now,  at  first  sight,  it  would  ap- 
pear, that  the  firm  exercise  of  this  power  of  refusal 
is  the  only  barrier  by  which  the  latter  class  can  be 
secured  against  the  indefinite  encroachments  of  the 
former;  and  that,  if  this  were  removed  all  the  safe- 
guards of  right  and  property  would  be  removed 
along  with  it.  The  power  of  refusal,  on  the  part 
of  those  who  have  the  right  of  refusal,  may  be  abol- 
ished by  an  act  of  violence,  on  the  part  of  those 
who  have  it  not ;  and  then,  when  this  happens  in 
individual  cases,  we  have  the  crimes  of  assault  and 
robbery  ;  and  when  it  happens  on  a  more  extended 


112  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

scale,  we  have  anarchy  and  insurrection  in  the  land. 
Or  the  power  of  refusal  may  be  taken  away  by  an 
authoritative  precept  of  religion  ;  and  then  might  it 
still  be  matter  of  apprehension,  lest  our  only  defence 
against  the  inroads  of  selfishness  and  injustice  were 
as  good  as  given  up,  and  lest  the  peace  and  interest 
of  families  should  be  laid  open  to  a  most  fearful  ex- 
posure, by  the  enactments  of  a  romantic  and  imprac- 
ticable system.  Whenever  this  is  apprehended,  the 
temptation  is  strongly  felt,  either  to  rid  ourselves  of 
the  enactments  altogether,  or  at  least  to  bring  them 
down  in  nearer  accommodation  to  the  feelings  and 
the  conveniences  of  men. 

And  Christianity,  on  the  very  first  blush  of  it,  ap- 
pears to  be  pricisely  such  a  religion.  It  seems  to 
take  away  all  lawfulness  of  resistance  from  the  pos- 
sessor, and  to  invest  the  demander  with  such  an  ex- 
tent of  privilege,  as  would  make  the  two  classes  of 
society,  to  which  we  have  just  now  adverted,  spee- 
dily change  places.  And  this  is  the  true  secret  of 
the  many  laborious  deviations  that  have  been  at- 
tempted, in  this  branch  of  morality,  on  the  obvious 
meaning  of  the  New  Testament.  This  is  the  secret 
of  those  many  qualifying  clauses,  by  which  its  most 
luminous  announcements  have  been  beset,  to  the  ut- 
ter darkening  of  them.  This  it  is  which  explains 
the  many  sad  invasions  that  have  been  made  on  the 
most  manifest  dnd  undeniable  literalities  of  the  law 
and  of  the  testimony.  And  our  present  text,  among 
others,  has  received  its  full  share  of  mutilation,  and 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  113 

of  what  may  be  called  "  dressing  up,"  from  the 
hands  of  commentators — it  having  wakened  the  ve- 
ry-alarms of  which  we  have  just  spoken,  and  call- 
ed forth  the  very  attempts  to  quiet  and  to  sub- 
due them.  Surely,  it  has  been  said,  we  can 
never  be  required  to  do  unto  others  what  they  have 
no  right,  and  no  reason,  to  expect  from  us.  The 
demand  must  not  be  an  extravagant  one.  It  must 
lie  within  the  limits  of  moderation.  It  must  be  such 
as,  in  the  estimation  of  every  justly  thinking  person 
is  counted  fair  in  the  circumstances  of  the  case. 
The  principle  on  which  our  Saviour,  in  the  text, 
rests  the  obligation  of  doing  any  particular  thing  to 
others,  is,  that  we  wish  others  to  do  that  thing  unto 
us.  But  this  is  too  much  for  an  affrighted  selfish- 
ness ;  and,  for  her  own  protection,  she  would  put 
forth  a  defensive  sophistry  upon  the  subject :  and 
in  place  of  that  distinctly  announced  principle,  on 
which  the  Bible  both  directs  and  specifies  what  the 
things  are  which  we  should  do  unto  others,  does  she 
substitute  another  principle  entirely — which  is, 
merely  to  do  unto  others  such  things  as  are  fair,  and 
right,  and  reasonable. 

Now,  there  is  one  clause  of  this  verse  whicli 
would  appear  to  lay  a  positive  interdict  on  all  these 
qualifications.  How  shall  we  dispose  of  a  phrase, 
so  sweeping  and  universal  in  its  import,  as  that  of 
"  all  things  whatsoever  ?"  We  cannot  think  that 
such  an  expression  as  this  was  inserted  for  nothing, 
by  lum  who  has  told  us,  that  "  cursed  is  every  one 

10* 


114  CHALMEiRS'  DISCOURSES. 

who  taketh  away  from  the  words  of  this  book.'^ 
There  is  no  distinction  laid  down  between  things 
fair,  ^nd  unfair — between  things  reasonable,  and 
things  unreasonable.  Both  are  comprehended  in 
the  "  all  things  whatsoever."  The  signification  is 
plain  and  absolute,  that,  let  the  thing  be  what  it 
may,  if  you  wish  others  to  do  that  thing  for  you,  it 
lies  imperatively  upon  you  to  do  the  very  same 
thing  for  them  also. 

But,  at  this  rate,  you  may  think  that  the  whole 
system  of  human  intercourse  would  go  into  unhinge- 
ment. You  may  wish  your  next-door  neighbour 
to  present  you  with  half  his  fortune.  In  this  case, 
we  know  not  how  you  are  to  escape  from  the  con- 
clusion, that  you  are  bound  to  present  him  with  the 
half  of  yours.  Or  you  may  wish  a  relative  to  bur- 
den himself  with  the  expences  of  your  family.  It 
is  then  impossible  to  save  you  from  the  positive  ob- 
ligation, if  you  are  equally  able  for  it,  of  doing  the 
same  service  to  the  family  of  another.  Or  you 
may  wish  to  engross  the  whole  time  of  an  acquaint- 
ance in  personal  attendance  upon  yourself.  Then, 
it  is  just  your  part  to  do  the  same  extent  of  civility 
to  another  who  may  desire  it.  These  are  only  a 
few  specifications,  out  of  the  manifold  varieties, 
whether  of  service  or  of  donation,  which  are  con- 
ceivable between  one  man  and  another  ;  nor  are 
we  aware  of  any  artifice  of  explanation  by  which 
they  can  possibly  be  detached  from  the  "  all  things 
whatsoever"  of  the  verse  before  us.     These  are. 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  115 

the  literalities  which  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  com- 
promise— but  are  bound  to  urge,  and  that  simply, 
according  to  the  terms  in  which  they  have  been 
conveyed  to  us  by  the  great  Teacher  of  Righteous- 
ness. This  may  raise  a  sensitive  dread  in  many  a 
bosom.  It  may  look  hke  the  opening  of  a  tlood- 
gate,  through  which  a  torrent  of  human  rapacity 
would  be  made  to  set  in  on  the  fair  and  measured 
domains  of  property,  and  by  which  all  the  fences  of 
legality  would  be  overthrown.  It  is  some  such 
fearful  anticipation  as  this  which  causes  casuistry  to 
ply  its  wily  expedients,  and  busily  to  devise  its  ma- 
ny limits,  and  its  many  exceptions,  to  the  morality 
of  the  New  Testament.  And  yet,  we  think  it  pos- 
sible to  demonstrate  of  our  text,  that  no  such  modi- 
fying is  requisite  ;  and  that,  though  admitted  strictly 
and  rigorously  as  the  rule  of  our  daily  conduct,  it 
would  lead  to  no  practical  conclusions  which  are  at 
all  formidable. 

For,  what  is  the  precise  circumstance  which  lays 
the  obligation  of  this  precept  upon  you  ?  There 
may  be  other  places  in  the  Bible  where  you  are  re- 
quired to  do  things  for  the  benetit  of  your  neighbour, 
whether  you  wish  your  neighbour  to  do  these  things 
foi*^'Our  benefit  or  not.  But  this  is  not  the  require- 
ment here.  There  is  none  other  thing  laid  upon 
you  in  this  place,  than  that  you  should  do  that  good 
action  in  behalf  of  another,  which  you  would  like 
that  other  to  do  in  behalf  of  yourself.  If  you  would 
not  like  him  to  do  it  for  vou,  then  there  is  nothing  m 


116  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES, 

the  compass  of  this  sentence  now  before  you,  that  at 
all  obligates  you  to  do  it  for  him.  If  you  would  not 
like  your  neighbour  to  make  so  romantic  a  surren- 
der to  your  interest,  as  to  offer  you  to  the  extent  of 
half  his  fortune,  then  there  is  nothing  in  that  part  of 
the  gospel  code  which  now  engages  us,  that  renders 
it  imperative  upon  you  to  make  the  same  offer  to 
your  neighbour.  If  you  would  positively  recoil,  in 
all  the  reluctance  of  ingenuous  delicacy,  from  the 
selhshness  of  laying  on  a  relation  the  burden  of  the 
expenses  of  all  your  family,  then  this  is  not  the  good 
office  that  you  would  have  him  do  unto  you  ;  and 
this,  therefore,  is  not  the  good  office  which  the  text 
prescribes  you  to  do  unto  him.  If  you  have  such 
consideration  for  another's  ease,  and  another's  con- 
venience, that  you  could  not  take  the  ungenerous 
advantage  of  so  much  of  his  time  for  your  accommo- 
dation, there  may  be  other  verses  in  the  Bible  which 
point  to  a  greater  sacritice  on  your  part,  for  the 
good  of  others,  than  you  would  like  these  others  to 
make  for  yours  ;  but,  most  assuredly,  this  is  not  the 
verse  which  imposes  that  sacrifice.  If  you  would 
not  that  others  should  do  these  things  on  your  ac- 
count, then  these  things  form  no  part  of  the  "  all 
things  whatsoever"  you  would  that  men  should  do 
unto  you  ;  and,  therefore,  they  form  no  part  of  the 
*'  all  things  whatsoever"  that  you  are  required,  by 
this  verse,  to  do  unto  them.  The  bare  circumstance 
of  your  positively  not  wishing  that  any  such  ser- 
vices should  be  rendered  unto  you,  exempts  you. 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  117 

as  far  as  the  single  authority  of  this  precept  is  con- 
cerned, from  the  obligation  of  rendering  these  ser- 
vices to  others.  This  is  the  limitation  to  the  ex- 
tent of  those  services  which  are  called  for  in  the 
text ;  and  it  is  surely  better,  that  every  limitation 
to  a  commandment  of  God's,  should  he  defined  by 
God  himself,  than  that  it  should  be  drawn  from  the 
assumptions  of  human  fancy,  or  from  the  fears  and 
the  feelings  of  human  convenience. 

Let  a  man,  in  fact,  give  himself  up  to  a  strict  and 
literal  observation  of  the  precept  in  this  verse,  and 
it  will  impress  a  two-fold  direction  upon  him.  It 
Avill  not  only  guide  him  to  certain  performances  of 
good  in  behalf  of  others,  but  it  will  guide  him  to  the 
regulation  of  his  own  desires  of  good  from  them. 
For  his  desires  of  good  fiom  others  are  here  set  up 
as  the  measure  of  his  peribrmances  of  good  to  oth- 
ers. The  more  selfish  and  unbounded  his  desires 
are,  the  larger  are  those  performances  with  the  ob- 
ligation of  which  he  is  burdened.  Whatsoever  he 
would  that  others  should  do  unto  him,  he  is  bound 
to  do  unto  them  ;  and,  therefore,  the  more  he  gives 
way  to  ungenerous  and  extravagant  wishes  of  ser- 
vice from  those  who  are  around  him,  the  heavier 
and  more  insupportable  is  the  load  of  duty  which  he 
brings  upon  himself.  The  commandment  is  quite 
imperative,  and  there  is  no  escaping  from  it ;  an4.it 
he,  by  the  excess  of  his  selfishness,  should  render  it 
impracticable,  then  the  wiioie  punishment,  due  to 
the  f^uilt  of  casting  asidtt  tlitt  authority  of  this  com- 


U8  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

mandmeiit,  follows  in  that  train  of  punishment  which 
is  annexed  to  selfishness.  There  is  one  way  of 
being  relieved  from  such  a  burden.  There  is  one 
way  of  reducing  this  verse  to  a  moderate  and  prac- 
ticable recjuirement ;  and  that  is,  just  to  give  up 
selfishness — -just  to  stifle  all  ungenerous  desires — 
just  to  moderate  every  wish  of  service  or  liberality 
from  others,  down  to  the  standard  of  what  is  right 
and  equitable  ;  and  then  there  may  be  other  verses 
in  the  Bible,  by  which  we  are  called  to  be  kind 
even  to  the  evil  and  the  unthankful.  But,  most 
assuredly,  this  verse  lays  upon  us  none  other  thing, 
than  that  we  should  do  such  services  for  others  as 
are  right  and  equitable. 

The  more  extravagant,  then,  a  man's  wishes  of 
accommodation  from  others  are,  the  wider  is  the 
distance  between  him  and  the  bidden  performances 
of  our  text.  The  separation  of  him  from  his  duty 
increases  at  the  rate  of  two  bodies  receding  from 
each  other  by  equal  and  contrary  movements.  The 
more  selfish  his  desires  of  service  are  from  others, 
the  more  feeble  on  that  very  account,  will  be  his 
desires  of  making  any  surrender  of  himself  to  them, 
and  yet  the  greater  is  the  amount  of  that  surrender 
which  is  due.  The  poor  man,  in  fact,  is  moving 
himself  away  from  the  rule  ;  and  the  rule  is  just 
nwjving  as  fast  away  from  the  man.  As  he  sinks,  in 
the  scale  of  selfishness,  beneath  the  point  of  a  fair 
and  moderate  expectation  from  others,  does  the 
rule  rise,  in  the  scale  of  of  duty,  with  its  demands 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  119 

upon  him  ;  and  thus  there  is  rendered  to  him  double 
for  every  unfair  and  ungenerous  imposition  that  he 
would  make  on  the  kindness  of  those  around  him. 

Now,  there  is  one  way,  and  a  very  effectual  one, 
of  getting  these  two  ends  to  meet.  Moderate  your 
own  desires  of  service  from  others,  and  you  will 
moderate,  in  the  same  degree,  all  those  duties  of 
service  to  others  which  are  measured  by  these  de- 
sires. Have  the  delicacy  to  abstain  from  any  wish 
of  encroachment  on  the  convenience  or  property 
of  another.  Have  the  high-mindedness  to  be  in- 
debted for  your  own  support  to  the  exertions  of 
your  own  honourable  industry,  rather  than  to  the 
dastardly  habit  of  preying  on  the  simplicity  of  those 
around  you.  Have  such  a  keen  sense  of  equity, 
and  such  a  fine  tone  of  independent  feeling,  that  you 
could  not  bear  to  be  the  cause  of  hardship  or  dis- 
tress to  a  single  human  creature,  if  you  could  help 
j:t.  Let  the  same  spirit  be  in  you,  which  the  Apos- 
tle wanted  to  exemplify  before  the  eye  of  his  disci- 
ples, when  he  coveted  no  man's  gold,  or  silver,  or 
apparel  ;  when  he  laboured  not  to  be  chargeable 
to  any  of  them  ;  but  wrought  with  his  own  hands, 
rather  than  be  burdensome.  Let  this  mind  be  in 
you,  which  was  also  in  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  ; 
and  then,  the  text  before  us  w^ill  not  come  near  you 
with  a  single  oppressive  or  impracticable  require- 
ment. There  may  be  other  passages,  where  you 
are  called  to  go  beyond  the  strict  line  of  justice,  or 
common  humanity,  in  behalfof  your  suffering  breth- 


120  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

ren.  But  this  passage  does  not  touch  yoii  with  any 
such  perceptive  imposition  ;  and  you,  by  modera- 
ting your  wishes  from  others  down  to  what  is  fair 
and  equitable,  do,  in  fact,  reduce  the  rule  which 
binds  you  to  act  according  to  the  measure  of  these 
wishes,  down  to  a  rule  of  precise  and  undeviating 
equity. 

The  operation  is  somewhat  like  that  of  a  gover- 
nor, or  fly,  in  mechanism.  This  is  a  very  happy 
contrivance,  by  which  all  that  is  defective  or  exces- 
sive in  the  motion,  is  confined  within  the  limits  of 
equability  ;  and  every  tendency,  in  particular,  to 
any  mischievous  acceleration,  is  restrained.  The 
impulse  given  by  this  verse  to  the  conduct  of  man 
among  his  fellows,  would  seem,  to  a  superficial  ob- 
server, to  carry  him  to  all  the  excesses  of  a  most 
ruinous  and  quixotic  benevolence.  But  let  him 
only  look  to  the  skilful  adaptation  of  the  fly.  Just 
suppose  the  control  of  moderation  and  equity  to  be 
laid  upon  his  own  wishes,  and  there  is  not  a  single 
impulse  given  to  his  conduct  beyond  the  rate  of 
moderation  and  equity.  You  are  not  required  here 
to  do  ail  things  whatsoever  in  behalf  of  others,  but 
to  do  all  things  whatsoever  for  them,  that  you  would, 
should  be  done  unto  yourself.  This  is  the  check 
by  which  the  whole  of  the  bidden  movement  is  gov- 
erned, and  kept  from  running  out  into  any  hurtful 
excess.  And  such  is  the  beautiful  operation  of  that 
piece  of  moral  mechanism  that  we  are  now  employ- 
ed  in  contemplating,  that  while  it  keeps  down  all 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  J2i 

the  aspirations  of  selfishness,  it  does,  in  fact,  res- 
train every  extravagancy,  and  impresses  on  its  o- 
hedient  subjects  no  other  movement,  than  that  of 
an  even  and  inflexible  justice. 

This  rule  of  our  Saviour's,  then,  prescribes  mod- 
eration to  our  desires  of  good  from  others,  as  well 
as  generosity  to  our  doings  in  behalf  of  others  ;  and 
makes  the  first  the  measure  of  obligation  to  the  sec- 
ond. It  may  thus  be  seen  how  easily,  in  a  Chris- 
tian society,  the  whole  work  of  benevolence  could 
be  adjusted,  so  as  to  render  it  possible  for  the  givers 
not  only  to  meet,  but  also  to  overpass,  the  wishes 
and  expectations  of  the  receivers.  The  rich  man 
may  have  a  heavier  obligation  laid  upon  him  by  other 
precepts  of  the  New  Testament  ;  but,  by  this  pre- 
cept, he  is  not  bound  to  do  more  for  the  poor  man. 
than  what  he  himself  would  wish,  in  like  circum- 
stances, to  be  done  for  him.  And  let  the  poor  man. 
on  the  other  hand,  wish  for  no  more  than  what  a 
Christian  ought  to  wish  for  ;  let  him  work  and  en- 
dure to  the  extent  of  nature's  sufferance,  rather 
than  beg — and  only  beg,  rather  than  that  he  should 
starve  ;  and  in  such  a  state  of  principle  among  men, 
a  tide  of  beneficence  would  so  go  forth  upon  all  the 
vacant  places  in  society,  as  that  there  should  be  no 
room  to  receive  it.  The  duty  of  the  rich,  as  con- 
nected with  this  administration,  is  of  so  direct  and 
positive  a  character,  as  to  obtrude  itself  at  once 
on  th  -'  notice  of  the  Christian  moralist.  But  the 
poor  also  have  a  duty  in  it — to  which  we  feel  our- 

U 


122  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES, 

selves  directed  by  the  train  of  argument  which  we 
have  now  been  prosecuting — and  a  duty,  too,  we 
think,  of  far  greater  importance,  even  than  the  oth- 
er, to  the  best  interests  of  mankind. 

For,  let  us  first  contrast  the  rich  man  who  is  un- 
generous in  his   doings,  with   the  poor  man  who  is 
ungenerous  in  his  desires  ;  and  see  fram  which  of 
the  two  it  is,  that  the  cause  of  charity  receives  the 
deadlier  infliction.     There  is,  it  must  be  admitted, 
an  individual  to  be  met  with  occasionally,  who  rep- 
resents the  former  of  these  two  characters  ;  with 
every  affection  gravitating  to  self,  and  to  its  sordid 
gratifications  and  interests  ;  bent  on  his  own  pleas- 
ure,  or  his  own    avarice — and    so  engrossed  with 
these,  as  to  have  no  spare  feeling  at  all  for  the  breth- 
ren of  his  common  nature  ;  with  a  heart  obstinate- 
ly shut  against  that  most  powerful  of  applications, 
the  look   of  genuine  and   imploring  distress — and 
whose  very  countenance  speaks  a  surly  and  deter- 
mined exclusion  on  every  call  that  proceeds  from  it ; 
who,  in  a  tumult  of  perpetual  alarm  about  new  ca- 
ses, and  new  tales  of  suffering,  and  new  plans  of  phi- 
lanthropy, has  at  length  learned  to  resist  and  to  re- 
sent every  one  of  them  ;  and,  spurning  the  whole  of 
this  disturbance  impatiently  away,  to  maintain   a 
firm  defensive  over  the   close    system  of  his  own 
selfish  luxuries,  and  his  own  snug  accommodations. 
Such  a  man  keeps  back,  it  must  be  allowed,  from 
the  cause  of  charity,  what  he  ought  to  have  render- 
ed to  it  in  his  own  person.     There  is  a  diminution 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  123 

of  the  philanthropic  fund  up  to  the  extent  of  what 
benevolence  would   have  awarded  out  of  his  indi- 
vidual means,  and  individual  opportunities.     The 
good  cause  is  a  sufferer,  not  by  any  positive  blow  it 
has  sustained,  but  by  the   simple  negation  of  one 
friendly  and  fostering  hand,  that  else  might  have 
been  stretched  forth  to  aid  and  patronise  it.     There 
is  only  so  much  less  of  direct  countenance  and  sup- 
port, than  would  otherwise  have  been  ;  for,  in  this 
our  age  we  have  no  conception  whatever  of  such  an 
example  being  at  all  infectious.     For  a  man  to  wal- 
low in  prosperity  himself  and  be  unmindful  of  the 
wretchedness  that  is  around  him,  is  an  exhibition  of 
altogether  so  ungainly  a  character,  that  it  will  far 
oftener  provoke  an  observer  to   affront  it  by  the 
contrast  of  his  own  generosity,  than  to  render  it  the 
approving  testimony  of  his  imitation.     So  that  all 
we  have  lost  by  the  man  who  is  ungenerous  in  his 
doings,  is  his  own  contribution  to  the  cause  of  phi- 
lanthropy.    And  it  is  a  loss  that  can  be  borne.    The 
cause  of  this  world's  beneficence  can  do  abundant- 
ly   without  him.      There  is  a  ground  that  is  yet  un- 
broken, and  there  are  resources  which  are  still  un- 
explored, that  will  yield  a  far  more  substantial  pro- 
duce to  the  good  of  humanity,  than  he,  and  thousands 
as  wealthy  as  he,  could  render  to  it,  out  of  all  their 
capabilities. 

But  there  is  a  far  wider  mischief  inflicted  on  the 
cause  of  charity,  by  the  poor  man  who  is  ungener- 
ous in  his  desires  ;  by  him,  whom  every  act  of  kind- 


i-24  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

ness  is  sure  to  call  out  to  the  reaction  of  some  new 
demand,  or  new  expectation  ;  by  him,  on  whom  the 
hand  of  a  giver  has  the  effect,  not  of  appeasing  his 
wants,  but  of  inflaming  his  rapacity  ;  by  him  who 
trading  among  the  sympathies  of  the  credulous,  can 
dexterously  appropriate  for  himself  a  portion  ten- 
fold greater  than  what  would  have  blest  and  bright- 
ened the  aspect  of  many  a  deserving  family.  Him 
we  denounce  as  the  worst  enemy  of  the  poor.  It  is 
he  whose  ravenous  gripe  wrests  from  them  afar  more 
abundant  benefaction,  than  is  done  by  the  most  lord- 
ly and  unfeeling  proprietor  in  the  land.  He  is  the 
arch  oppressor  of  his  brethren  ;  and  the  amount  of 
the  robbery  which  he  has  practised  upon  them,  is 
not  to  be  estimated  by  the  alms  which  he  has  mono- 
polised, by  the  food,  or  the  raiment,  or  the  moneyj 
which  he  has  diverted  to  himself,  from  the  more 
modest  sufferers  around  him.  He  has  done  what  is 
infinitely  worse  than  turning  aside  the  stream  of 
charity.  He  has  closed  its  flood-gates.  He  has 
chilled  and  alienated  the  hearts  of  the  wealthy,  by 
the  gall  of  bitterness  which  he  has  infused  into  this 
whole  ministration.  A  few  such  harpies  would  suf- 
fice to  exile  a  whole  neighbourhood  from  the  atten- 
tions of  the  benevolent,  by  the  distrust  and  the 
jealousy  wherewith  they  have  poisoned  their  bosoms, 
and  laid  an  arrest  on  all  the  sensibilities  that  else 
would  have  flowed  from  them.  It  is  he  who,  ever 
on  the  watch  and  on  the  wing  about  some  enter- 
prize  of  imposture,   makes  it  his  business  to  work 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  125 

and  to  prey  on  the  compassionate  principles  of  our 
nature  ;  it  is  he  who,  in  elfect,  grinds  the  faces  of 
the  poor,  and  that,  with  deadher  severity  than  even 
is  done  by  the  great  baronial  tyrant,  the  battlements 
of  whose  castle  seem  to  frown,  in  all  the  pride  of 
aristocracy,  on  the  territory  that  is  before  it.  There 
is,  at  all  times,  a  kindliness  of  feeling  ready  to  stream 
forth,  with  a  tenfold  greater  liberality  than  ever,  on 
the  humble  orders  of  life  ;  and  it  is  he,  and  such  as 
he,  Avho  have  congealed  it.  He  has  raised  a  jaun- 
diced medium  between  the  rich  and  the  poor,  in 
virtue  of  which,  the  former  eye  the  latter  with  sus- 
picion ;  and  there  is  not  a  man  who  wears  the  garb, 
and  prefers  the  applications  of  poverty,  that  has  not 
suffered  from  the  worthless  impostor  who  has  gone 
before  him.  They  are,  in  fact,  the  deceit,  and  the 
indolence,  and  the  low  sordidness  of  a  few  who 
have  made  out  castsof  the  many,  and  locked  against 
them  the  feelings  of  tlie  wealthy  in  a  kind  of  iron 
imprisonment.  The  rich  man  who  is  ungenerous 
in  his  doings  keeps  back  one  labourer  from  the  field 
of  charity.  But  a  poor  man  who  is  ungenerous  in 
his  desires,  can  expel  a  thousand  labourers  in  dis- 
gust away  from  it.  He  sheds  a  cruel  and  extended 
blight  over  the  fair  region  of  philanthropy  ;  and 
many  have  abandoned  it,  who,  but  for  him,  would 
fondly  have  lingered  thereupon  ;  very  many,  who, 
but  for  the  way  in  which  their  simplicity  has  been 
tried  and  trampled  upon,  would  still  have  tasted  the 
luxury  of  doing  good  unto  the  poor,  and  made  it 

11* 


126  CHALMERS'  DISC0l5^SES. 

their  delight,  as  well  as  their  duty,  to  expend  and 
expatiate  among  their  habitations. 

We  say  not  this  to  exculpate  the  rich ;  for  it  is 
their  part  not  to  be  weary  in  well  doing,  but  to 
prosecute  the  work  and  the  labour  of  love  under 
every  discouragement.  Neither  do  we  say  this  to 
the  disparagement  of  the  poor  ;  for  the  picture  we 
have  given  is  of  the  few  out  of  the  many  ;  and  the 
closer  the  acquaintance  with  humble  life  becomes, 
will  it  be  the  more  seen  of  what  a  high  pitch  of 
generosity  even  the  very  poorest  are  capable. — 
They,  in  truth,  though  perhaps  they  are  not  aware 
of  it,  can  contribute  more  to  the  cause  of  charity, 
by  the  moderation  of  their  desires,  than  the  rich 
can  by  the  generosity  of  their  doings.  They,  with- 
out, it  may  be,  one  penny  to  bestow,  might  obtain  a 
place  in  the  record  of  heaven,  as  the  most  liberal 
benefactors  of  their  species.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  humble  condition  of  life  they  occupy,  which 
precludes  them  from  all  that  is  great  or  graceful  in 
human  charity.  There  is  a  way  in  which  they 
may  equal,  and  even  outpeer,  the  wealthiest  of  the 
land,  in  that  very  virtue  of  which  wealth  alone  has 
been  conceiVed  to  have  the  exclusive  inheritance. 
There  is  a  pervading  character  in  humanity  which 
the  varieties  of  rank  do  not  obliterate  ;  and  as,  in 
virtue  of  the  common  corruption,  the  poor  man 
may  be  as  effectually  the  rapacious  despoiler  of  his 
brethren,  as  the  man  of  opulence  above  him — so, 
there  is  a  common  excellence  attainable  by  both ; 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  127 

and  through  which,  the  poor  man  may,  to  the  full, 
be  as  splendid  in  generosity  as  the  rich,  and  yield 
a  far  more  important  contribution  to  the  peace  and 
comfort  of  society. 

To  make  this  plain — it  is  in  virtue  of  a  gener- 
ous doing  on  the  part  of  a  rich  man,  when  a  sum  of 
money  is  offered  for  the  relief  of  want ;  and  it  is  in 
virtue  of  a  generous  desire  on  the  part  of  a  poor 
man,  when  this  money  is  refused ;  when,  with  the 
feeling,  that  his  necessities  do  not  just  warrant  him 
to  be  yet  a  burden  upon  others,  he  declines  to 
touch  the  offered  liberality ;  when,  with  a  delicate 
recoil  from  the  unlooked-for  proposal,  he  still  re- 
solves to  put  it  for  the  present  away,  and  to  find,  if 
possible',  for  himself  a  little  longer;  when  standing 
on  the  very  margin  of  dependence,  he  would  yet 
like  to  struggle  with  the  difficulties  of  his  situation, 
and  to  maintain  this  severe  but  honourable  conflict, 
till  hard  necessity  should  force  him  to  surrender. 
Let  the  money  which  he  has  thus  so  nobly  shifted 
from  himself  take  some  new  direction  to  another; 
and  who,  we  ask,  is  the  giver  of  it  ?  The  first  and 
most  obvious  reply  is,  that  it  is  he  who  owned  it : 
but,  it  is  still  more  emphatically  true,  that  it  is  he 
who  has  declined  it.  It  came  originally  out  of  the 
rich  man's  abundance  ;  but  it  was  the  noble-hcart- 
ed  generosity  of  the  poor  man  that  handed  it  on- 
wards to  its  tinal  destination.  He  did  not  emanate 
the  gift ;  but  it  is  just  as  much  that  he  has  not  ab- 
sorbed it,  but  left  it  to  find   its  full  conveyance  to 


128  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

some  neighbour  poorer  than  himself,  to  some  fami» 
ly  still  more  friendless  and  destitute  than  his  own. 
It  was  given  the  first  time  out  of  an  overHovving  ful- 
ness. It  is  given  the  second  time  out  of  stinted  and 
self-denying  penury.  In  the  world's  eye,  it  is  the 
proprietor  who  bestowed  the  charity.  But,  in 
heaven's  eye,  the  poor  man  who  waived  it  away 
from  himself  to  another  is  the  more  illustrious  phi- 
lanthropist of  the  two.  The  one  gave  it  out  of  his 
affluence.  The  other  gave  it  out  of  the  sweat  of 
his  brow.  He  rose  up  early,  and  sat  up  late,  that 
he  might  have  it  to  bestow  on  a  poorer  than  him- 
self; and  without  once  stretching  forth  a  giver's 
hand  to  the  necessities  of  his  brethren,  still  is  it 
possible,  that  by  him,  and  such  as  him,  may  the 
main  burden  of  this  world's  benevolence  be  borne. 
It  need  scarcely  be  remarked,  that,  without  sup- 
posing the  offer  of  any  sum  made  to  a  poor  man 
who  is  generous  in  his  desires,  he,  by  simply  keep- 
ing himself  back  from  the  distributions  of  charity, 
fulfils  all  the  high  functions  which  we  have  now  as- 
cribed to  him.  He  leaves  the  charitable  fund  un- 
touched for  all  that  distress  which  is  more  clamo- 
rous than  his  own  ;  and  we  therefore,  look,  not  to 
the  original  givers  of  the  money,  but  to  those  who 
line,  as  it  were,  the  margin  of  pauperism,  and  yet 
firmly  refuse  to  enter  it — we  look  upon  them  as  the 
pre-eminent  benefactors  of  society,  who  narrow, 
as  it  were,  by  a  wall  of  defence,  the  ground  of  hu- 


^      CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  129 

man  dependence,  and  are,  in  fact,  the  guides  and 
the  guardians  of  all  that  opulence  can  bestow. 

Thus  it  is,  that  when  Christianity  becomes  uni- 
versal, the  doings  of  the  one  party,  and  the  desires 
of  the  other,  will  meet  and  overpass.  The  poor 
will  wish  for  no  more  than  the  rich  will  be  delight- 
ed to  bestow  ;  and  the  rule  of  our  text,  which  eve- 
ry real  Christian  at  present  finds  so  practicable,  will, 
when  carried  over  the  face  of  society,  bind  all  the 
members  of  it  into  one  consenting  brotherhood. 
The  duty  of  doing  good  to  others  will  then  coalesce 
with  that  counterpart  duty  which  regulates  our  de- 
sires of  good  from  them  ;  and  the  work  of  benevo- 
lence w^ill,  at  length,  be  prosecuted  without  that  al- 
loy of  rapacity  on  the  one  hand,  and  distrust  on  the 
other,  which  serves  so  much  to  fester  and  disturb 
the  whole  of  this  ministration.  To  complete  this 
adjustment,  it  is  in  every  way  as  necessary  to  lay 
all  the  incumbent  moralities  on  those  who  ask,  as 
on  those  who  confer  ;  and  never  till  the  whole  text, 
which  comprehends  the  wishes  of  man  as  well  as  his 
actions,  wield  its  entire  authority  over  the  species, 
will  the  disgusts  and  the  prejudices,  which  form 
such  a  barrier  between  the  ranks  of  human  life,  be 
effectually  done  away.  It  is  not  by  the  abolition  of 
rank,  but  by  assigning  to  each  rank  its  duties,  that 
peace,  and  friendship,  and  order,  will  at  length  be 
firmly  estabhshcd  in  our  world.  It  is  by  the  force 
of  principle,  and  not  by  the  force  of  some  great  po- 
litical overthrow,  that  a  consummation  so  delightful 


isb  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

is  to  be  attained.     We  have  no  conception  whatev- 
er, that,  even  in  millennial  days,  the  diversities  of 
wealth  and  station  will  at  length  be  equalised.     On 
looking  forward  to  the  time  when  kings  shall  be  the 
nursing  fathers,  and  queens  the  nursing  mothers  of 
our  church,  we  think  that  we  can  behold  the  per- 
spective of  as  varied  a  distribution  of  place  and 
property  as  before.     In  the  pilgrimage  of  life,  there 
will  still  be  the  moving  procession  of  the  few  chari- 
oted in  splendour  on  the  highway,  and  the  many  pa- 
cing by  their  side  along  the  line  of  the  same  journey. 
There  will,  perhaps,  be  a  somewhat  more  elevated 
footpath  for  the  crowd  ;  and  there  will  be  an  air  of 
greater  comfort  and  sufficiency  amongst  them  ;  and 
the  respectability  of  evident  worth  and  goodness 
will  sit  upon  the  countenance  of  this  general  popu- 
lation.    But,  bating  these,  we  look  for  no  great 
change  in  the  external  aspect  of  society.     It  will 
only  be  a  moral  and  a  spiritual  change.     Kings  will 
retain  their  sceptres,  and  nobles  their  coronets ;  but, 
as  they  float  in  magnificence  along,  will  they  look 
with  benignant  feeling  on  the  humble  wayfarers  ; 
and  the  honest  salutations  of  regard  and  reverence 
will  arise  to  them  back  again  ;  and,  should  any  wea- 
ry passenger  be  ready  to  sink  unfriended  on  his  ca- 
reer, will  he,  at  one  time,  be  borne  onwards  by  his 
fellows  on  the  pathway,  and,  at  another,  will  a  show- 
er of  beneficence  be  made  to  descend  from  the  crest- 
ed equipage  that  overtakes  him.     It  is  Utopianism 
to  think,  that,  in  the  ages  of  our  world  wiiich  are 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  131 

yet  to  come,  the  outward  distinctions  of  life  will  not 
all  be  upholden.  But  it  is  not  Utopianism,  it  is 
Prophecy  to  aver,  that  the  breath  of  a  new  spirit 
will  go  abroad  over  the  great  family  of  mankind — 
so,  that  while,  to  the  end  of  time,  there  shall  be  the 
high  and  the  low  in  every  passing  generation,  will 
the  charity  of  kindred  feelings,  and  of  a  common 
understanding,  create  a  fellowship  between  them 
on  their  way,  till  they  reach  that  heaven  where  hu- 
man love  shall  be  perfected,  and  all  human  great- 
ness is  unknown. 

In  various  places  of  the  New  Testament,  do  we 
see  the  checks  of  spirit  and  delicacy  laid  upon  all 
extravagant  desires.  Our  text,  while  it  enjoins  the 
performance  of  good  to  others,  up  to  the  full  mea- 
sure of  your  desires  of  good  from  them,  equally  en- 
joins the  keeping  down  of  these  desires  to  the  mea- 
sure of  your  performances.  If  Christian  dispensers 
had  only  to  do  with  Christian  recipients,  the  whole 
work  of  benevolence  would  be  with  ease  and  har- 
mony carried  on.  All  that  was  unavoidable — all 
that  came  from  the  hand  of  Providence — all  that 
was  laid  upon  our  suffering  brethren  by  the  unlook- 
ed-for visitations  of  accident  or  disease — all  that 
pain  and  misfortune  which  necessarily  attaches  to 
the  constitution  of  the  species — all  this  the  text  most 
amply  provides  for  ;  and  all  this  a  Christian  society 
would  be  delighted  to  stretch  forth  their  means  for 
the  purpose  of  alleviating  or  doing  away. 


132  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

We  should  not  have  dwelt  so  long  upon  this  l^fe- 
son,  were  it  not  for  the  essential  Christian  princi- 
ple that  is  involved  in  it.  The  morality  of  the  gos- 
pel is  not  more  strenuous  on  the  side  of  the  duty  of 
giving  of  this  world's  goods  when  it  is  needed,  than 
it  is  against  the  desire  of  receiving  when  it  is  not 
needed.  It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  recieve, 
and  therefore  Jess  blessed  to  receive  than  to  give. 
For  the  enforcement  of  this  principle  among  the 
poorer  brethren,  did  Paul  give  up  a  vast  portion  of 
his  apostolical  time  and  labour  ;  and  that  he  might 
be  an  ensample  to  the  flock  of  working  with  his  own 
hands,  rather  than  be  burdensome,  did  he  set  him- 
self down  to  the  occupation  of  a  tent-maker.  That 
lesson  is  surely  worthy  of  engrossing  one  sermon  of 
an  uninspired  teacher,  for  the  sake  of  which  an  in- 
spired Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  engrossed  as  much 
time  as  would  have  admitted  the  preparation  and 
the  delivery  of  many  sermons.  But  there  is  no 
more  striking  indication  of  the  whole  spirit  and  char- 
acter of  the  gospel  in  this  matter,  than  the  example 
of  him  who  is  the  author  of  it — and  of  whom  wc 
read  these  affecting  words,  that  he  came  into  the 
world  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister. 
It  is  a  righteous  thing  in  him  who  has  of  this  world's 
goods,  to  minister  to  the  necessities  of  others  :  but 
it  is  a  still  higher  attainment  of  righteousness  in  him 
who  has  nothing  but  the  daily  earnings  of  his  daily 
work  to  depend  upon,  so  to  manage  and  to  strive 
that  he  shall  not  need  to  be  mmistered  unto.    Chris- 


CHALxMERS^  DISCOURSES.  133 

tianity  overlooks  no  part  of  human  conduct ;  and 
by  providing  for  this  in  particular,  does  it  in  fact, 
overtake,  and  tfiatwith  a  precept  of  utmost  impor- 
tance, the  habit  and  condition  of  a  very  extended 
class  in  human  society.  And  never  does  the  gospel 
so  exhibit  its  adaptation  to  our  species — and  never 
does  virtue  stand  in  such  characters  of  strength  and 
sacredness  before  us — as  when  impregnated  with 
the  evangelical  spirit,  and  urged  by  evangelical  mo- 
tives, it  takes  its  most  direct  sanction  from  the  life 
and  doings  of  the  Saviour. 

And  he  who  feels  as  he  ought,  will  bear  with 
cheerfulness  ail  that  the  Saviour  prescribes,  when 
he  thinks  how  much  it  is  for  him  that  the  Saviour 
has  borne.  We  speak  not  of  his  poverty  all  the 
time  that  he  lived  upon  earth.  We  speak  not  of 
those  years  when,  a  houseless  wanderer  in  an  un- 
thankful world,  he  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head. 
We  speak  not  of  the  meek  and  uncomplaining  suf- 
ferance with  which  he  met  the  many  ills  that  op- 
pressed the  tenor  of  his  mortal  existence.  But  we 
speak  of  that  awful  burden  which  crushed  and  over- 
whelmed its  termination.  We  speak  of  that  season, 
of  the  hour  and  the  power  of  darkness,  when  it 
pleased  the  Lord  to  bruise  him,  and  to  make  his 
soul  an  offering  for  sin.  To  estimate  aright  the  en- 
durance of  him  who  himself  bore  our  infirmities, 
would  we  ask  of  any  individual  to  reccollect  some 
deep  and  awful  period  of  abandonment  in  his  own 
history — when  that  countenance  which  at  one  tim-e 

12 


134  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

beamed  and  brightened  upon  him  from  above,  was 
mantled  in  thickest  darkness — when  the  iron  of  re- 
morse entered  into  his  soul — and,  laid  on  a  bed  of 
torture,  he  w^as  made  to  behold  the  evil  of  sin,  and 
to  taste  of  its  bitterness.  Let  him  look  back,  if  he 
can,  on  this  conflict  of  many  agitations,  and  then  fig- 
ure the  whole  of  this  mental  wretchedness  to  be 
borne  off  by  the  ministers  ot'  vengeance  into  hell, 
and  stretched  out  into  eternity.  And  if,  on  the 
great  day  of  expiation,  a  full  atonement  was  render- 
ed, and  all  that  should  have  fallen  upon  us  was  pla- 
ced upon  the  head  of  the  sacrifice — let  him  hence 
compute  the  weight  and  the  awfulness  of  those  sor- 
rows which  were  carried  by  him  on  whom  the  chas- 
tisement of  our  peace  was  laid,  and  who  poured  out 
his  soul  unto  the  death  for  us.  If  ever  a  sinner,  un- 
der such  a  visitation,  shall  again  emerge  into  peace 
and  joy  in  believing — if  he  ever  shall  again  find  his 
way  to  that  fountain  which  is  opened  in  the  house  of 
Judah — if  he  shall  recover  once  more  that  sunshine 
of  the  soul,  which  on  the  days  that  are  past,  disclo- 
sed to  him  the  beauties  of  holiness  here,  and  the  glo- 
ries of  heaven  hereafter — if  ever  he  shall  hear 
with  effect,  in  this  world,  that  voice  from  the  mer- 
cy-seat, which  still  proclaims  a  welcome  to  the  chief 
of  sinners,  and  beckons  him  afresh  to  reconciliation 
— O!  how  gladly  then  should  he  bear  throughout 
the  remainder  of  his  days,  the  whole  authority  of  the 
Lord  who  bought  him  ;  and  bind  for  ever  to  his  own 
person  that  yoke  of  the  Saviour  which  is  easy,  and 
that  burden  which  is  light. 


DISCOURSE  Vi. 

ON  THE  DISSIPATION  OF  LARGE  CITIES. 


•'Let  no  man  deceive  you  with  vain  words  ;  for  because  orthest 
things  Cometh  the  wrath  of  God  upon  the  children  of  disobedi- 
ence."— Ephes.  v.  6. 

There  is  one  obvious  respect  in  vvliich  the  stan- 
dard of  morality  amongst  men,  differs  from  that  pure 
and  universal  standard  which  God  hath  set  up  for 
the  obedience  of  his  subjects.  Men  will  not  demand 
very  urgently  of  each  other,  that,  which  does  not 
very  nearly,  or  very  immediately,  affect  their  own 
personal  and  particular  interest.  To  the  violations 
of  justice,  or  truth,  or  humanity,  they  will  be  abun- 
dantly sensitive,  because  these  offer  a  most  visible 
and  quickly  felt  encroachment  on  this  interest. 
And  thus  it  is,  that  the  social  virtues,  even  without 
any  direct  sanction  from  God  at  all,  vnll  ever  draw 
a  certain  portion  of  respect  and  reverence  around 
them  ;  and  that  a  loud  testimony  of  abhorrence  may 
often  be  heard  from  the  mouths  of  ungodly  men, 
against  all  such  vices  as  may  be  classed  under  the 
general  designation  of  vices  of  dishonesty. 

Now,  the  same  thing  does  not  hold  true  of  anoth- 


i3Q  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

er  class  of  vices,  which  may  be  termed  the  vices  of 
dissipation.  These  do  not  touch,  in  so  visible  or 
direct  a  manner,  on  the  security  of  what  man  pos- 
sesses, and  what  man  has  the  greatest  value  for. 
But  man  is  a  selfish  being,  and  therefore  it  is,  that 
the  ingredient  of  selfishness  gives  a  keenness  to  his 
estimation  of  the  evil  and  of  the  enormity  of  the 
former  vices,  which  is  scarcely  felt  at  all  in  any  es- 
timation he  may  form  of  the  latter  vices.  It  is  very 
true,  at  the  same  time,  that  if  one  were  to  compute 
the  whole  amount  of  the  mischief  they  bring  upon 
society,  it  would  be  found,  that  the  profligacies  of 
mere  dissipation  go  very  far  to  break  up  the  peace, 
and  enjoyment,  and  even  the  relative  virtues  of  the 
world  ;  and  that,  if  these  profligacies  were  reform- 
ed, it  would  work  a  mighty  augmentation  on  the 
temporal  good  both  of  individuals  and  families. 
But  the  connexion  between  sobriety  of  character, 
and  the  happiness  of  the  community,  is  not  so  ap- 
parent, because  it  is  more  remote  than  the  connex- 
ion which  obtains  between  integrity  of  character, 
and  the  happiness  of  the  community  ;  and  man  be- 
ing not  only  a  selfish  but  shortsighted  being,  it  fol- 
lows, that  wliiie  the  voice  of  execration  may  be 
distinctly  heard  against  every  instance  of  fraud  or 
of  injustice,  instances  of  licentiousness  may  occur 
on  every  side  of  us,  and  be  reported  on  the  one  hand 
with  the  utmost  levity,  and  be  listened  to,  on  the 
other,  with  the  most  entire  and  complacent  tolera- 
tion. 


(:;halmers'  discourses.  _       13/ 

Here,  then,  is  a  point,  in  which  the  general  mo- 
rahty  of  the  world  is  at  utter  and  irreconcileable 
variance  with  the  law  of  God.  Here  is  a  case,  in 
which  the  voice  that  cometh  forth  from  the  tribunal 
of  public  opinion  pronounces  one  thing,  and  the 
voice  that  cometh  forth  from  the  sanctuary  of  God 
pronounces  another.  When  there  is  an  agreement 
between  these  two  voices,  the  principle  on  which 
obedience  is  rendered  to  their  joint  and  concurring 
authority,  may  be  altogether  equivocal ;  and,  with 
r-eligious  and  irreligious  men,  you  may  observe  an 
equal  exhibition  of  all  the  equities,  and  all  the  ci- 
vilities of  life.  But  when  there  is  a  discrepancy 
between  these  two  voices — or  when  the  one  attach- 
es a  criminality  to  certain  habits  of  conduct,  and  is 
not  at  all  seconded  by  the  testimony  of  the  other — 
then  do  we  escape  the  confusion  of  mingled  motives, 
and  mingled  authorities.  The  character  of  the 
two  parties  emerges  out  of  the  ambiguity  which  in- 
volved it.  The  law  of  God  points,  it  must  be  al- 
lowed, as  forcible  an  anathema  against  the  man  of 
dishonesty,  as  against  the  man  of  dissipation.  But 
the  chief  burden  of  the  world's  anathema  is  laid  on 
the  head  of  the  former  \  and  therefore  it  is,  that, 
on  the  latter  ground,  we  meet  with  more  discrimi- 
tive  tests  of  principle,  and  gather  more  satisfying 
materials  for  the  question  of — who  is  on  the  side  of 
the  Lord  of  Hosts,  and  who  is  against  him  ? 

The  passage  we  have  now  submitted  to  you,  looks 
hard  on  the  votaries  of  dissipation.     It  is  hke  eter- 

12  ^ 


138  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

nal  truth,  lifting  up  its  own  proclamation,  and  caus^ 
ing  it  to  be  heard  amid  the  errors  and  delusions  of  a 
thoughtless  world.     It  is  like  the  Deity  himself, 
looking  forth,  as  he  did,  from  a  cloud,  pn  the  Egyp- 
tians of  old,  and  troubling  the  souls  of  those  who 
are  lovers  of  pleasures,  more  than  lovers  of  God. 
I  It  is  like  the  voice  of  heaven,  crying  down  the  voice 
I  of  human  society,  and  sending  forth  a  note  of  alarm 
I  amongst  its  giddy  generations.     It  is  like  the  un- 
f  rolling  of  a  portion  of  that  book  of  higher  jurispru- 
dence out  of  which  we  shall  be  judged  on  the  day^ 
of  our  coming  account,  and  setting  before  our  eyes 
an  enactment,  which,  if  we  disregard  it,  will  turn 
that  day  into  the  day  of  our  coming  condemnation. 
The  words  of  man  are  adverted  to  in  this  solemn 
proclamation  of  God.  against  all  unlawful  and  all 
unhallowed  enjoyments,  and  they  are  called  words 
of  vanity.     He  sets  aside  the  authority  of  human 
opinion  altogether  ;  and,  on  an  irrevocable  record, 
has  he  stamped  such  an  assertion  of  the  authority 
that  belongeth  to  himself  only,  as  serves  to  the  end 
of  time  for  an  enduring  memorial  of  his  will  ;  and  as 
commits  the  truth  of  the  Lawgiver  to  the  execution 
of  a  sentence  of  wrath  against  all  whose  souls  are 
hardened  by  the  deceitfulness  of  sin.     There  is,  in 
fact,  a  peculiar  deceitfulness   in  the  matter  before 
us  ;  and,  in  this  verse  we  are  warned  against  it — 
"  Let  no  man  deceive  you   with  vain  words  ;  for, 
because  of  these  things,  the  wrath  of  God  cometh 
on  the  children  of  disobedience." 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  139 

In  the  preceding  verse,  there  is  such  an  enume- 
ration as  serves  to  explain  what  the  things  are  which 
are  alluded  to  in  the  text;  and  it  is  such  an  enu- 
meration, you  should  remark,  as  goes  to  fasten  the 
whole  terror,  and  the  whole  threat,  of  the  coming 
vengeance — not  on  the  man  who  combines  in  his 
own  person  all  the  characters  of  iniquity  which  are 
specified,  but  on  the  man  who  realizes  any  one  of 
these  characters.  It  is  not,  you  will  observe,  the 
conjunction  and,  but  the  conjunction  or,  which  is 
interposed  between  them.  It  is  not  as  if  w^e  said, 
that  the  man  who  is  dishonest,  and  licentious,  and 
covetous,  and  unfeeling,  shall  not  inherit  the  king- 
dom of  God — but  the  man  w  ho  is  either  dishonest, 
or  hcentious,  or  covetous,  or  unfeeling.  On  the 
single  and  exclusive  possession  of  any  one  of  these 
attributes,  will  God  deal  with  you  as  with  an  enemy. 
The  plea,  that  we  are  a  little  thoughtless,  but  we 
have  a  good  heart,  is  conclusively  cut  asunder  by 
this  portion  of  the  law  and  of  the  testimony.  And 
in  a  corresponding  passage,  in  the  ninth  verse  of  the 
sixth  chapter  of  Paul's  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthi- 
ans, the  same  peculiarity  is  observed  in  the  enume- 
ration of  those  who  shall  be  excluded  from  God's 
favour,  and  have  the  burden  of  God's  wrath  laid  on 
them'  tlirough  eternity.  It  is  not  the  man  who  com- 
bines all  the  deformities  of  character  which  are 
there  specified,  but  the  man  who-  realizes  any  one 
of  the  separate  deformities.  Some  of  them  are  the 
vices  of  difcHonesty,  otliers  of  them  are  the  vices  of 


140  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

dissipation  ;  and,  as  if  aware  of  a  deceitfulness  from 
this  cause,  he,  after  telling  us  that  the  unrighteous 
shall  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God,  bids  us  not  be 
deceived — for  that  neither  the  licentious,  nor  the 
abominable,  nor  thieves,  nor  covetous,  nor  drunk- 
ards, norrevilers,  nor  extortioners,  shall  inherit  the 
kingdom  of  God. 

He  who  keepeth  the  whole  law,  but  offendeth  in 
one  point,  says  the  Apostle  James,  is  guilty  of  all. 
The  truth  is,  that  his  disobedience  on  this  one  point 
may  be  more  decisive  of  the  state  of  his  loj'alty  to 
God,  than  his  keeping  of  all  the  rest.  It  may  be 
the  only  point  on  which  the  character  of  his  loyalty 
is  really  brought  to  the  trial.  All  his  conformities 
to  the  law  of  God  might  have  been  rendered,  be- 
cause they  thwarted  not  his  own  inclination  ;  and, 
therefore,  would  have  been  rendered,  though  there 
had  been  no  law  at  all.  The  single  infraction  may 
have  taken  place  in  the  only  case  where  there  was 
a  real  competition  between  the  will  of  the  creature, 
and  the  will  of  the  Creator ;  and  the  event  proves 
to  which  of  the  two  the  right  of  superiority  is  award- 
ed. Allegiance  to  God  in  truth  is  but  one  princi- 
ple, and  may  be  described  by  one  short  and  summa- 
ry expression  ;  and  one  act  of  disobedience  may  in- 
volve in  it  such  a  total  surrender  of  the  principle 
as  goes  to  dethrone  God  altogether  from  the  supre- 
macy which  belongs  to  him.  So  that  the  account 
between  a  creature  and  the  Creator  is  not  like  an 
account  made  up  of  many  items,  where  the  expung- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  141 

inp'  of  one  item  would  oniy  make  one  small  and 
fractional  deduction  from  the  whole  sum  of  obedi- 
ence. If  you  reserve  but  a  single  item  from  this 
account,  and  another  makes  a  principle  of  comple- 
ting and  rendering  up  the  whole  of  it,  then  your 
character  varies  from  his  not  by  a  slight  shade  of 
difference,  but  stands  contrasted  with  it  in  direct 
and  diametric  opposition.  We  perceive,  that,  while 
with  him  the  will  of  God  has  the  mastery  over  ail 
his  inclinations,  with  you  there  is,  at  least,  one  in- 
clination which  has  the  mastery  over  God  ;  that 
while  in  his  bosom  there  exists  a  single  and  subor- 
dinating principle  of  allegiance  to  the  law,  in  yours 
there  exists  another  principle,  which,  on  the  coming 
round  of  a  fit  opportunity,  developes  itself  in  an  act 
of  transgression  ;  that,  while  with  him  God  may  be 
said  to  walk  and  to  dwell  in  him,  with  you  there  is 
an  evil  visitant,  who  has  taken  up  his  abode  in  your 
heart,  and  lodges  there  either  in  a  state  of  dorman- 
cy or  of  action,  according  to  circumstances  ;  that, 
while  with  him  the  purpose  is  honestly  proceeded  on, 
of  doing  nothing  which  God  disapproves,  with  you 
there  is  a  purpose  not  only  different,  but  opposite, 
of  doing  something  which  he  disapproves.  On  this 
single  difference  is  suspended  not  a  question  of  de- 
gree, but  a  question  of  kind.  There  are  presented 
to  us  not  two  hues  of  the  same  colour,  but  two  co- 
lours, just  as  broadly  contrasted  with  each  other  as 
light  and  darkness.  And  such  is  the  state  of  the  al- 
ternative between  a  partial  and  an  unreserved  obe- 


142  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

dience,  that  while  God  imperatively  claims  the  one 
as  his  due,  he  looks  on  the  other  as  an  expression 
of  defiance  against  him,  and  against  his  sovereignty. 

It  is  the  very  same  in  civil  government.  A  man 
renders  himself  an  outcast  by  one  act  of  disobedi- 
ence. He  does  not  need  to  accumulate  upon  him- 
self the  guilt  of  all  the  higher  atrocities  in  crime, 
ere  he  forfeits  his  life  to  the  injured  laws  of  his  coun- 
try. By  the  perpetration  of  any  of  them  is  the 
whole  vengeance  of  the  state  brought  to  bear  upon 
his  person,  and  sentence  of  death  is  pronounced  on 
a  single  murder,  or  forgery,  or  act  of  violent  depre- 
dation. 

And  let  us  ask  you  just  to  reflect  on  the  tone  and 
spirit  of  that  man  towards  his  God,  who  would  palli- 
ate, for  example,  the  vices  of  dissipation  to  which 
he  is  addicted,  by  alleging  his  utter  exemption  from 
the  vices  of  dishonesty,  to  which  he  is  not  addicted. 
Just  think  of  the  real  disposition  and  character  of 
his  soul,  who  can  say,  "  1  will  please  God,  but  only 
when,  in  so  doing,  I  also  please  myself;  or  I 
will  do  homage  to  his  law,  but  just  in  those  in- 
stances by  which  I  honour  the  rights,  and  fulfil 
the  expectations,  of  society  ;  or  I  will  be  deci- 
ded by  his  opinion  of  the  right  and  the  wrong, 
but  just  when  the  opinion  of  my  neighbourhood 
lends  its  powerful  and  effective  confirmation.  But 
in  other  cases,  when  a  matter  is  reduced  to  a 
bare  question  between  man  and  God,  when  he  is 
the  single  party  I  have  to  do  with,  when  his  will  and 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  143 

his  wrath  are  the  only  elements  which  enter  into 
the  deliberation,  when  judgment,  and  eternity,  and 
the  voice  of  him  who  speaketh  from  heaven  are  the 
only  considerations  at  issue — then  do  I  feel  myself 
at  greater  liberty,  and  I  shall  take  my  own  way,  and 
walk  in  the  counsel  of  mine  own  heart,  and  after  the 
sight  of  my  own  eyes."  O !  be  assured,  that  when 
all  this  is  laid  bare  on  the  day  of  reckoning,  and  the 
discerner  of  the  heart  pronounces  upon  it,  and  such 
a  sentence  is  to  be  given,  as  will  make  it  manifest 
to  the  consciences  of  all  assembled,  that  true  and 
righteous  are  the  judgments  of  God — there  is  many 
a  creditable  man  who  has  passed  through  the  world 
with  the  plaudits  and  the  testimonies  of  all  his  fel- 
lows, and  without  one  other  flaw  upon  his  reputa- 
tion but  the  very  slender  one  of  certain  harmless 
foibles,  and  certain  good-humoured  peculiarities, 
who  when  brought  to  the  bar  of  account,  will  stand 
convicted  there  of  having  made  a  divinity  of  his  own 
will,  and  spent  his  days  in  practical  and  habitual 
atheism. 

And  this  argument  is  not  at  all  affected  by  the  ac- 
tual state  of  sinfulness  and  infirmity  into  which  we 
have  fallen.  It  is  true,  even  of  the  saints  on  earth 
that  they  commit  sin.  But  to  be  overtaken  in  a 
fault  is  one  thing  ;  to  commit  the  fault  with  the  de- 
liberate consent  of  the  mind  is  another.  There  is 
in  the  bosom  of  every  true  Christian  a  strenuous 
principle  of  resistance  to  sin,  and  it  belongs  to  the 
very  essence  of  the  principle  that  it  is  resistaiice  to 


144  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

all  sin.     It  admits  of  no  voluntary  indulgence  to  one 
sin  more   than   to   another.     Such  an  indulgence 
would  not  only  change  the  character  of  what  may 
be  called  the  elementary  principle  of  regeneration, 
but  would  destroy  it  altogether.     The  man  who  has 
entered  on  a  course  of  Christian  discipleship,  car- 
ries on  an  unsparing  and  universal  war  with  all  ini- 
quity.    He  has  chosen  Christ  for  his  alone  master, 
and  he  struggles  against  the  ascendancy  of  every 
other.     It  is  his  sustained  and  habitual  exertion  in 
following  after  him  to  forsake  all  5  so  that  if  his  per- 
formance were  as  complete  as  his  endeavour,  you 
would  not  merely  see  a  conformity  to  some  of  the 
precepts,   but  a    conformity    to   the  whole    law  of 
God.     At  all  events,  the  endeavour  is  an  honest  one 
and  so  far  successful  that  sin  has  not  the  dominion  ; 
and  sure  we  are,  that,  in  such  a  state  of  things,  the 
vices  of  dissipation  can  have  no  existence.     These 
vices   can  be  more  elfectually  shunned,  and  more 
elTectually  surmounted,  for  example,  than  the  infir- 
mities of  an  unhappy  temper.     So  that,  if  dissipa- 
tion still  attaches  to  the  character,  and  appears  in 
the  conduct  of  any  individual,  we  know  not  a  more 
decisive  evidence  of  the  state  of  that  individual  as 
being  one  of  the  many  who  crowd  the  broad  way 
that  leadelh  to  destruction.     We  look  no  further  to 
make  out  our  estimate  of  his  present  condition  as 
being  that  of  a  rebel,  and  of  his  future  prospect  as 
being  that  of  spending  an  eternity  in  hell.     There 
is  no  halting  between  two  opinions  in  this  matter. 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  145 

The  man  who  enters  a  career  of  dissipation  throws 
down  the  <rauntlet  of  deliance  to  his  God.  The  man 
who  persists  in  this  career  keeps  on  the  ground  of 
hostihty  against  him. 

Let  us  now  endeavour  to  trace   the  origin,   the 
progress,  and  the  effects,  of  a  hfe  of  dissipation. 

First.  Then  it  maybe  said  of  a  very  great  number 
of  young,  on  their  entrance  into  the  business  of  the 
world,  that  they  have  not  been  enough  fortified  a- 
gainstits  seducing  influences  by  their  previous  edu- 
cation at  home.  Generally  speaking,  they  come 
out  from  the  habitation  of  their  parents  unarmed 
and  unprepared  for  the  contest  which  awaits  them. 
If  the  spirit  of  this  world's  morality  reign  in  their 
Own  family,  then  it  cannot  be,  that  their  introduc- 
tion into  a  more  public  scene  of  life  will  be  very 
strictly  guarded  against  those  vices  on  which  the 
world  placidly  smiles,  or  at  least  regards  with  silent 
toleration.  They  may  have  been  told,  in  early 
boyhood,  of  the  infamy  of  a  lie.  They  may  have 
had  the  virtues  of  punctuality,  and  of  economy,  and 
of  regular  attention  to  business,  pressed  upon  their 
observation.  They  may  have  heard  a  uniform  tes- 
timony on  the  side  of  good  behaviour,  up  to  the 
standard  of  such  current  moralities  as  obtain  in  their 
neighbourhood  ;  and  this,  we  are  ready  to  admit, 
may  include  in  it  a  testimony  against  all  such  ex- 
cesses of  dissipation  as  would  unfit  them  for  the 
prosecution  of  this  world's  interests.  But  let  us 
ask,  whether  there  arc  not  parents,  who,  after  thev 

13 


146  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

have  carried  the  work  of  discipline  thus  far,  forbear 
to  carry  it  any    farther  ;  who,    while  they  would 
mourn  over  it  as  a  family  trial,  should  any  son  of 
theirs  fall  a  victim  to  excessive  dissipation,  yet  are 
willinc;  to  tolerate   the  lesser  degrees  of  it  ;  who, 
instead  of  deciding  the  question  on  the  alternative 
of  his  heaven  or  his  hell,  are  satisfied  with  such  a 
measure  of  sobriety  as  will  save  him  from  ruin  and 
disgrace  in  this  life  ;  who,  if  they  can  only  secure 
this,  they  have  no  great  objection  to  the  moderate 
share  he  may  take   in  this  world's   conformities  ; 
who  feel,   that  in  this  matter  there  is  a  necessity 
and  a  power  of  example  against  which  it  is  vain  to 
struggle,   and  which  must  be  acquiesced  in  ;  who 
deceive  themselves  with  the  fancied  impossibility 
of  stopping  the  evil  in  question — and  say,  that  bus- 
iness must  be  gone  through  ;  and  that,  in  the  pros- 
ecution of  it,  exposures  must  be  made  ;  and  that, 
for  the  success  of  it,  a  certain  degree  of  accommo- 
dation to  others  must  be  observed  :  and  seeing  that 
it  is  so  mighty  an  object  for  one  to  widen  the  extent 
of  his  connexions,  he  must  neither  be  very  retired 
nor  very  peculiar — nor  must  his  hours  of  compan- 
ship  be  too  jealously  watched  or  inquired  into — nor 
must  we  take  him  too  strictly  to  task  about  engage- 
ments, and  acquaintances,  and   expenditure — nor 
must  we  forget,  that  while  sobriety  has  its  time  and 
its  season  in  one  period  of  life,  indulgence  has  its 
season  in  another  ;  and  we  may  fetch  from  the  re- 
collected folUes  of  our  own  youth,  a  lesson  of  con- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  147 

nivance  for  the  present  occasion  ;  and  altogether 
there  is  no  help  for  it ;  and  it  appears  to  us,  that  ab- 
solutely and  totally  to  secure  him  from  ever  enter- 
ing upon  scenes  of  dissipation,  you  must  absokitely 
and  totally  withdraw  him  from  the  world,  and  sur- 
render all  his  prospects  of  advancement,  and  give 
up  the  object  of  such  a  provision  for  our  families  as 
we  feel  to  be  a  first  and  most  important  concern  with 
us. 

"  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  his  right- 
eousness," says  the  Bible,  "  and  all  other  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you."  This  is  the  promise 
which  a  Christian  parent  will  rest  upon  ;  and  in  the 
face  of  every  hazard  to  the  worldly  interests  of  his 
offspring,  will  he  bring  them  up  in  the  strict  nurture 
and  admonition  of  the  Lord ;  and  he  will  loudly 
protest  against  iniquity,  in  all  its  degrees,  and  in  all 
its  modifications  ;  and  while  the  power  of  discipline 
remains  with  him,  it  will  ever  be  exerted  on  the 
side  of  pure,  faultless,  and  undeviating  obedience  ; 
and  he  Avill  tolerate  no  exception  whatever  ;  and  he 
will  brave  all  that  looks  formidable  in  singularity, 
and  all  that  looks  menacing  in  separation  from  the 
custom  and  countenance  of  the  world;  and  feeling 
that  his  main  concern  is  to  secure  for  himself  and 
for  his  family  a  place  in  the  city  which  hath  founda- 
tions, will  he  spurn  all  the  maxims,  and  all  the  plau- 
sibilities of  a  contagious  neighbourhood  away  from 
him.  He  knows  the  price  of  his  Christianity,  and 
it  ifi  that  he  must  break  off  conformity  with  the  world 


H^48  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

— nor  for  any  paltry  advantage  which  it  has  to  of- 
fer, will  he  compromise  the  eternity  of  his  children. 
And  let  us  tell  the  parents  of  another  spirit,  and  a- 
nother  principle,  that  they  are  as  good  as  incurring 
the  guilt  of  a  human  sacrifice  ;  that  they  are  offering 
up  their  children  at  the  shrine  of  an  idol ;  that  they 
are  parties  in  provoking  the  w^rath  of  God  against 
them  here  ;  and  on  the  day  w^hen  that  wrath  is  tO 
be  revealed,  shall  they  hear  not  only  the  meanings 
of  their  despair,  but  the  outcries  of  their  bitterest 
execration.     On  that  day,  the  glance  of  reproach 
from  their  own  neglected   offspring  will  throw  a 
deeper  shade  of  wretchedness   over  the  dark   and 
boundless  futurity  that  lies  before  them.     And  if, 
at  the  time  when  prophets  rung  the  tidings  of  God's 
displeasure  against  the  children  of  Israel,  it  was  de- 
nounced as  the  foulest  of  all  their  abominations  that 
they  caused  their  children  to  pass  through  the  fire 
unto  Moloch — know  ye  parents,  who,  in  placing 
your  children  on  some  road  to  gainful  employment, 
have  placed  them  without  a  sigh  in  the  midst  of  de- 
pravity, so  near  and  so  surrounding,  that,  without 
a  miracle,  they  must  perish,  you  have  done  an  act 
of  idolatry  to  the  God  of  this  world  ;  you  have  com- 
manded your  household,  after  you,  to  worship  him 
as  the  great  divinity  of  their  lives  ;  and  you  have 
caused  your  children  to  make  their  approaches  un- 
to his  presence — and,  in  so   doing,  to  pass  through 
the  fire  of  such  temptations  as  have  destroyed  them. 
We  do  not  wish  to  offer  you  an  overcharged  pic- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  149 

ture  on  this  melancholy  subject.  What  we  now 
say  is  not  applicable  to  all.  Even  in  the  most  cor- 
rupt and  crowded  of  our  cities,  parents  are  to  be 
found,  who  nobly  dare  the  surrender  of  every  vain 
and  flattering,  illusion,  rather  than  surrender  the 
Christianity  of  their  children.  And  what  is  still 
more  affecting,  over  the  face  of  the  country  do  we 
meet  with  such  parents,  who  look  on  this  world  as 
a  passage  to  another,  and  on  all  of  their  household 
as  fellow-travellers  to  eternity  along  with  them ; 
and  who,  in  this  true  spirit  of  believers,  feel  the 
salvation  of  their  children  to  be,  indeed,  the  bur- 
den of  their  best  and  dearest  interest ;  and  who. 
by  prayer,  and  precept,  and  example,  have  stren- 
uously laboured  with  their  souls,  from  the  earlies 
light  of  their  understanding  ;  and  have  taught  them 
to  tremble  at  the  way  of  evil  doers,  and  to  have  no 
fellowship  with  those  who  keep  not  the  command- 
ments of  God — nor  is  there  a  day  more  sorrowful 
in  the  annals  of  this  pious  family,  than  when  the 
course  of  time  has  brought  them  onwards  to  the  de- 
parture of  their  eldest  boy — and  he  must  bid  adieu 
to  his  native  home,  with  all  the  peace,  and  all  the 
simplicity  which  abound  in  it — and  as  he  eyes  in 
fancy  the  distant  town  whither  he  is  going,  does  he 
shrink  as  from  the  thought  of  an  unknown  wilder- 
ness— aiid  it  is  his  firm  purpose  to  keep  aloof  from 
the  dangers  and  the  profligacies  which  deform  it — 
and,  should  sinners  offer  to  entice  him,  not  to  con- 
sent, and  never,  never,  to  forget  the  lessons  of  a 

13* 


150  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

father's   vigilance,  the   tenderness  of    a  mother's 
prayers. 

Let  us  now,  in  the  next  place,  pass  from  that 
state  of  things  which  obtains  among  the  young  at 
their  outset  into  the  world,  and  take  a  look  of  that 
state  of  things  which  obtains  after  they  have  got 
fairly  introduced  into  it — when  the  children  of  the 
ungodly,  and  the  children  of  the  religious,  meet  on 
one  common  arena — when  business  associates  them 
together  in  one  chamber,  and  the  omnipotence  of 
custom  lays  it  upon  them  all  to  meet  together  at 
periodic  intervals,  and  join  in  the  same  parties  and 
the  same  entertainments — when  the  yearly  importa- 
tion of  youths  from  the  country  falls  in  with  that  as- 
similating mass  of  corruption  which  has  got  so  firm 
and  so  rooted  an  establishment  in  the  town — when 
the  frail  and  unsheltered  delicacies  of  the  timid  boy 
have  to  stand  a  rude  and  a  boisterous  contest  with 
the  hardier  depravity  of  those  who  have  gone  before 
him — when  ridicule,  and  example,  and  the  vain 
words  of  a  delusive  sophistry,  which  palliates  in  his 
hearing  the  enormity  of  vice,  are  all  brought  to 
bear  upon  his  scruples,  and  to  stiHe  the  remorse  he 
might  feel  when  he  casts  his  principle  and  his  purity 
away  from  him — when,  placed  as  he  is,  in  a  land  of 
strangers,  he  finds,  that  the  tenure  of  acquaintance- 
ship, with  nearly  all  around  him,  is,  that  he  render 
himself  up  in  a  conformity  to  their  doings — when  a 
voice,  like  the  voice  of  protecting  friendship,  bids 
him  to  the  feast ;  and  a  welcome,  like  the  welcome 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  151 

of  honest  kindness,  hails  his  accession  to  the  socie- 
ty ;  and  a  spirit,  hke  the  spirit  of  exhilarating  joy, 
animates  the  whole  scene  of  hospitality  before  him  ; 
and  hours  of  rapture  roll  successively  away  on  the 
wings  of  merriment,  and  jocularity,  and  song  ;  and 
after  the  homage  of  many  libations  has  been  ren- 
dered to  honour,  and  fellowship,  and  patriotism, 
impurity  is  at  length  proclaimed  in  full  and  open  cry 
as  one  presiding  divinity,  at  the  board  of  their  so- 
cial entertainment. 

And  now  it  remains  to  compute  the  general  result 
of  a  process,  which  we  assert  ot  the  vast  majority  of 
our  young,  on  their  way  to  manhood,  that  they  have 
to  undergo.     The  result  is,  that  the  vast  majority 
are  initiated  into  all  the  practices,  and  describe  the 
full  career  of  dissipation.     Those  who  have  imbibed 
from  their  fathers  the  spirit  of  this  world's  morality, 
are   not  sensibly  arrested  in  this  career,  either  by 
the  opposition  of  their  own  friends,  or  by  the  voice 
of  their  own  conscience.     Those  who  have  imbibed 
an  opposite  spirit,  and  have  brought  it  into  compe- 
tition with  an  evil  world,  and  have  at  length  yielded, 
have  done  so,  we  may  well  suppose,  with  many  a 
sigh,   and  many  a  struggle,  and  many  a  look  of  re- 
membrance on  those  former  years  when  they  were 
taught  to  lisp  the  prayer  of  infancy,  and  were  train- 
ed in  a  mansion  of  piety  to  a  reverence  for  God, 
and  for  all  his  ways  ;  and,  even  still,  will  a  parent's 
parting  advice  haunt  his  memory,  a-jd  a  letter  from 
the  good  old  man  revive  the  sensibilities  which  at 


152  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

one  time  guarded  and  adorned  him  ;  and  at  times, 
will  the  transient  gleam  of  remorse  lighten  up  its 
agony  within  him  ;  and  when  he  contrasts  the  pro- 
faneness  and  depravity  of  his  present  companions, 
with  the  sacredness  of  all  he  ever  heard  or  saw  in 
his  father's  dwelling,  it  will  almost  feel  as  if  con- 
science were  again  to  resume  her  power,  and  the 
revisiting  spirit  of  God  to  call  him  back  again  from 
the  paths  of  wickedness ;  and  on  his  restless  bed 
will  the  images  of  guilt  conspire  to  disturb  him,  and 
the  terrors  of  punishment  offer  to  scare  him  away  ; 
and  many  will  be  the  dreary  and  dissatisfied  inter- 
vals when  he  shall  be  forced  to  acknowledge,  that, 
in  bartering  his  soul  for  the  pleasures  of  sin,  he  has 
bartered  the  peace  and  enjoyment  of  the  world 
along  with  it.  But,  alas  !  the  entanglements  of 
companionship  have  r;ot  hold  of  him  ;  and  the  in- 
veteracy of  habit  tyrannizes  over  all  his  purposes  ; 
and  the  stated  opportunity  again  comes  round  ;  and 
the  loud  laugh  of  his  partners  in  guilt  chases,  for 
another  season  all  his  despondency  away  from  him  ; 
and  the  infatuation  gathers  upon  him  every  month; 
and  the  deceitfulness  of  sin  grows  apace  5  and  he 
at  length  becomes  one  of  the  sturdiest  and  most 
unrelenting  of  her  votaries  ;  and  he,  in  his  turn, 
strengthens  the  conspiracy  that  is  formed  against 
the  morals  of  a  new  generation;  and  all  the  ingen- 
uous delicacies  of  other  days  are  obliterated  ;  and 
he  contracts  a  temperament  of  knowing,  hackneyed, 
unfeeling  depravity  ;  and  thus  the  mischief  is  trans- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  15S 

mitted  from  one  year  to  another,  and  keeps  up  the 
guilty  history  of  every  place  of  crowded  population. 

And  let  us  here  speak  one  word  to  those  seniors 
in  depravity — those  men  who  give  to  the  corrup- 
tion of  acquaintances,  who  are  younger  than  them- 
selves, their  countenance,  their  agency  ;  and  who 
can  initiate  them  without  a  sigh  in  the  mysteries  of 
guilt,  and  care  not  though  a  parent's  hope  should 
wither  and  expire  under  the  contagion  of  their  ruf- 
fian example.  It  is  only  upon  their  own  conversion 
that  we  can  speak  to  them  the  pardon  of  the  gos- 
pel. It  is  only  if  they  themselves  are  washed,  and 
sanctified,  and  justified,  that  we  can  warrant  their 
personal  deliverance  from  the  wrath  that  is  to  come. 
'But  under  all  the  concealment  which  rests  on  the 
futurities  of  God's  administration,  we  know,  that 
there  are  degrees  of  suffering  in  hell — and  that 
while  some  are  beaten  with  few  stripes,  others  are 
beaten  with  many.  And  surely,  if  they  who  turn 
many  to  righteousness  shall  shine  as  the  stars  for 
ever  and  ever,  we  may  be  well  assured,  that  they 
who  patronise  the  cause  of  iniquity — they  who  can 
beckon  others  to  that  way  which  leadeth  on  to  the 
chambers  of  death — they  who  can  aid  and  witness, 
without  a  sigh,  the  extinction  of  youthful  modesty — 
surely,  it  may  well  be  said  of  such,  that  on  them  a 
darker  frown  will  fall  from  the  judgment-scat,  and 
through  eternity  they  will  have  to  bear  the  pains  of 
a  fiercer  indignation. 

Having  thus  looked  to  the  commencement  of  a 


|j4  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

course  of  dissipation,  and  to  its  progress,  let  us  now, 
in  the  third  place,  look  to  its  usual  termination. 
We  speak  not  at  present  of  the  coming  death,  and 
of  the  coming  judgment,  but  of  the  change  which 
takes  place  on  many  a  votary  of  licentiousness, 
when  he  becomes  what  the  world  call  a  reformed 
man  ;  and  puts  on  the  decencies  of  a  sober  and  do- 
mestic establishment ;  and  bids  adieu  to  the  pur- 
suits and  the  profligacies  of  youth,  not  because  he 
has  repented  of  them,  but  because  he  has  outlived 
them.  You  all  perceive  how  this  may  be  done 
without  one  movement  of  the  heart,  or  of  the  un- 
derstanding, towards  God — that  it  is  done  by  many, 
though  duty  to  him  be  not  in  all  theii-  thoughts — 
that  the  change,  in  this  case,  is  not  from  the  idol  of 
pleasure  unto  God,  but  only  from  one  idol  to  anoth- 
er— and  that,  after  the  whole  of  this  boasted  trans- 
formation, we  may  still  behold  the  same  body  of 
sin  and  of  death,  and  only  a  new  complexion  thrown 
over  it.  There  may  be  the  putting  on  of  sobriety, 
but  there  is  no  putting  on  of  godliness.  It  is  a  com- 
mon and  an  easy  transition  to  pass  from  one  kind  of 
disobedience  to  another,  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  give 
up  that  rebelliousness  of  the  heart  which  lies  at  the 
root  of  all  disobedience.  It  may  be  easy,  after  the 
wonted  course  of  dissipation  is  ended,  to  hold  out 
another  aspect  altogether  in  the  eye  of  acquaint- 
ances :  but  it  is  not  so  easy  to  recover  that  shock, 
and  that  overthrow,  which  the  religious  principle  sus- 
tains, when  a  man  tirst  enters  the  world,  and  surren- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  155 

ders  himself  to  the  power  of  its  enticements.  Such 
were  some  of  you,  says  the  Apostle,  but  ye  are 
washed,  and  sanctified,  and  justified.  Our  reform- 
ed man  knows  not  the  meaning  of  such  a  process ; 
and  most  assuredly,  has  not  at  all  realised  it  in  the 
history  of  his  own  person.  We  will  not  say  what 
new  object  he  is  running  after.  It  may  be  wealth, 
or  ambition,  or  philosophy  ;  but  it  is  nothing  con- 
nected with  the  interest  of  his  soul.  It  bears  no 
reference  whatever  to  the  concerns  of  that  great 
relationship  which  obtains  between  the  creature 
and  the  Creator.  The  man  has  withdrawn,  and 
perhaps  for  ever,  from  the  scenes  of  dissipation,  and 
has  betaken  himself  to  another  way — but  still  it  is 
his  own  way. — It  is  not  the  way  or  the  will  of  God 
that  he  is  yet  caring  for.  Such  a  man  may  bid  adieu 
to  profligacy  in  his  own  person.  But  he  lifts  up  the 
light  of  his  countenance  on  the  profligacy  of  others. 
He  gives  it  the  whole  weight  and  authority  of  his 
connivance.  He  wields,  we  will  say  it,  such  an 
instrumentality  of  seduction  over  the  young,  as, 
though  not  so  alarming,  is  far  more  dangerous  than 
the  undisguised  attempts  of  those  who  are  the  imme- 
diate agents  of  corruption.  The  formal  and  delib- 
erate conspiracy  of  those  who  club  together  at  sta- 
ted terms  of  companionship,  may  be  all  seen,  and 
watched  and  guarded  against.  But  how  shall  we 
pursue  this  conspiracy  into  its  other  ramifications  ? 
How  shall  we  be  able  to  neutralize  that  insinuating 
poison  which  distils  from  the  lips  of  grave  and  res- 


156  CHALMERS^  DISCOURSES. 

pectable  citizens  ?  How  shall  we  be  able  to  dissi- 
pate that  gloss  which  is  thrown  by  the  smile  of  el- 
ders and  superiors  over  the  sins  of  forbidden  indul- 
gence ?  How  can  we  disarm  the  bewitching  sophis- 
try which  lies  in  all  these  evident  tokens  of  compla- 
cency, on  the  part  of  advanced  and  reputable  men  ? 
How  is  it  possible  to  tract  the  progress  of  this  sore 
evil,  throughout  all  the  business  and  intercourse  of 
society  ?  How  can  we  stem  the  influence  of  evil 
communications,  when  the  friend,  and  the  patron, 
and  the  man  who  has  cheered  and  signalized  us  by 
his  polite  invitations,  turns  his  own  family-table  into 
a  nursery  of  licentiousness  ?  How  can  we  but  des- 
pair of  ever  witnessing  on  earth  a  pure  and  a  holy 
generation,  when  even  parents  will  utter  their  pol- 
luting levities  in  the  hearing  of  their  own  children  ; 
and  vice,  and  humour,  and  gaiety,  are  all  indiscrimi- 
nately blended  into  one  conversation  ;  and  a  loud 
laugh  from  the  initiated  and  the  uninitiated  in  prof- 
ligacy, is  every  ready  to  flatter  and  to  regale  the 
man  who  can  thus  prostitute  his  powers  of  enter- 
tainment ?  ()  !  for  an  arm  of  strength  to  demolish 
this  tirm  and  far  spread  compact  of  iniquity  ;  and 
for  the  power  of  some  such  piercing  and  prophetic 
voice,  as  might  convince  our  reformed  men  of  the 
baleful  influence  they  cast  behind  them  on  the  mo- 
rals of  the  succeeding  generation. 

We,  at  the  same  time,  have  our  eye  perfectly 
open  to  that  great  external  improvement  which  has 
taken  place,  of  late  years,  in  the  manners  of  society. 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  U7 

There  is  not  the  same  grossness  of  conversation. 
There  is  not  the  same  impatience  for  the  withdraw- 
ment  of  him,  who,  asked  to  grace  the  outset  of  an 
assembled  party,  is  compelled,  at  a  certain  step  in 
the  process  of  conviviality,  by  the  obligations  of 
professional  decency,  to  retire  from  it.  There  is 
not  so  frequent  an  exaction  of  this  as  one  of  the  es- 
tablished proprieties  of  social  or  of  fashionable  life. 
And  if  such  an  exaction  was  ever  laid  by  the  om- 
nipotence of  custom  on  a  minister  of  Christianity, 
it  is  such  an  exaction  as  ought  never,  never,  to  be 
complied  with.  It  is  not  for  him  to  lend  the  sanc- 
tion of  his  presence  to  a  meeting  with  which  he 
could  not  sit  to  its  final  termination.  It  is  not  for 
him  to  stand  associated,  for  a  single  hour,  with  an 
assemblage  of  men  who  begin  with  hypocrisy,  and 
end  with  downright  blackguardism.  It  is  not  for 
him  to  watch  the  progress  of  the  coming  ribaldry, 
and  to  hit  the  well  selected  moment  when  talk,  and 
turbulence,  and  boisterous  merriment,  are  on  the 
eve  of  bursting  forth  upon  the  company,  and  carry 
them  forward  to  the  full  acme  and  uproar  of  their 
enjoyment.  It  is  quite  in  vain  to  say,  than  he  has 
only  sanctified  one  part  of  such  an  entertainment. 
He  has  as  good  as  given  his  connivance  to  the  whole 
of  it,  and  left  behind  him  a  discharge  in  full  of  all  its 
abominations;  and,  therefore,  be  they  who  they 
may,  whether  they  rank  among  the  proudest  aris- 
tocracy of  our  land,  or  arc  charioted  in  splendour 
along,  as  the  wealthiest  of  the  citizens,  it  is  his  part 

14 


1j8  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

to  keep  as  purely  and  indignantly  aloof  from  such 
society  as  this,  as  he  would  from  the  vilest  and  most 
debasing  associations  of  profligacy. 

And  now  the  important  question  comes  to  be 
put ;  what  is  the  likeliest  way  of  setting  up  a  bar- 
rier against  this  desolating  torrent  of  corruption, 
into  which  there  enter  so  many  elements  of  power 
and  strength,  that,  to  the  general  c}  e,  it  looks  alto- 
gether irresistible  ?  It  is  easier  to  give  a  negative, 
than  an  affirmative  answer  to  this  question.  And, 
therefore  it  shall  be  our  first  remark,  that  the  mis- 
chief never  will  be  eifectually  combatted  by  any 
expedient  separate  from  the  growth  and  the  trans- 
mission of  personal  Christianity  throughout  the 
land.  If  no  addition  be  made  to  the  stock  of  reli- 
gious principle  in  a  country,  then  the  profligacy  of 
a  country  will  make  its  obstinate  stand  against  all 
the  mechanism  of  the  most  skilful,  and  plausible, 
and  well  looking  contrivances.  It  must  not  be  dis- 
guised from  you,  that  it  does  not  lie  within  the 
compass  either  of  prisons  or  penitentiaries  to  work 
any  sensible  abatement  on  the  wickedness  of  our 
existing  generation.  The  operation  must  be  of  a 
preventive,  rather  than  of  a  corrective  tendency.  It 
must  be  brought  to  bear  upon  boyhood  ;  and  to  be 
kept  up  through  that  whole  period  of  random  expo- 
sures through  v/hich  it  has  to  run,  on  its  way  to  an 
established  condition  in  society  ;  and  a  high  tone  of 
moral  purity  must  be  infused  into  the  bosom  of  ma- 
ny individuals  ;  and  their  agency  will  elFect  through 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  159 

the  channels  of  family  and  social  connexion,  what 
never  can  be  elfected  by  any  framework  of  artili- 
cial  regulations,  so  long  as  the  spirit  and  character 
of  society  remain  w  hat  they  are.  In  other  words, 
the  progress  of  reformation  will  never  be  sensibly 
carried  forward  beyond  the  progress  of  personal 
Christianity  in  the  world  ;  and  therefore  the  ques- 
tion resolves  itself  into  the  likeliest  method  of  ad- 
ding to  the  number  of  Christian  parents  who  may 
fortify  the  principles  of  their  children  at  their  first 
outset  in  life — of  addintr  to  the  number  of  Christ- 
ian  young  men,  who  might  nobly  dare  to  be  singu- 
lar, and  to  perform  the  angelic  oilice  of  guardians 
and  advisers  to  those  who  are  younger  than  them- 
selves— of  adding  to  the  number  of  Christians  in 
the  middle  and  advanced  life,  who  might,  as  far  as 
in  them  lies,  alter  the  general  feeling  and  counte- 
nance of  society;  and  blunt  the  force  of  that  tacit 
but  most  seductive  testimony,  which  has  done  so 
much  to  throw  a  palliative  veil  over  the  guilt  of  a 
life  of  dissipation. 

Such  a  question  cannot  be  entered  upon,  at  pre- 
sent, in  all  its  bearings,  and  in  all  its  generality. 
And  we  must,  therefore,  simply  satisfy  ourselves 
with  the  object  that  as  we  have  attempted  already 
to  reproach  the  inditference  of  parents,  and  to  re- 
proach the  unfeeling  depravity  of  those  young  men 
w^ho  scatter  their  pestilential  levities  around  the 
whole  circle  of  their  companionship,  we  may  now 
ghortly  attempt  to  lay  upon  the  men  of  middle  and 


l60  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

advanced  life,  in  general  society,  their  share  of  res- 
ponsibility for  the  morals  of  the  rising  generation. 
For  the  promotion  of  this  great  cause  it  is  not  at  all 
necessary  to  school  them  into  any  nice  or  exquisite 
contrivances.  Could  we  only  give  them  a  desire 
towards  it,  and  a  sense  of  obligation,  they  would 
soon  find  their  own  way  to  the  right  exercise  of  their 
own  influence  in  forwarding  the  interests  of  purity 
and  virtue  among  the  young.  Could  we  only  affect 
their  consciences  on  this  point,  there  would  be  al- 
most no  necessity  whatever  to  guide  or  enlighten 
their  understanding.  Could  we  only  get  them  to 
be  Christians,  and  to  carry  their  Christianity  into 
their  business,  they  would  then  feel  themselves  in- 
vested with  a  guardianship  ;  and  that  time,  and 
pains,  and  attention,  ought  to  be  given  to  the  fulfil- 
ment of  its  concerns.  It  is  quite  in  vain  to  ask,  as 
if  there  was  any  mystery,  or  any  helplessness  about 
it,  "  what  can  they  do  ?"  For,  is  it  not  the  fact 
most  palpably  obvious,  that  much  can  be  done  even 
by  the  mere  power  of  example  ?  Or  might  not  the 
master  of  any  trading  establishment  send  the  per- 
vading influence  of  his  own  principles  among  some, 
at  least,  of  the  servants  and  auxiliaries  who  belong 
to  it  ?  Or  can  he,  in  no  degree  whatever,  so  select 
those  who  are  admitted,  as  to  ward  oflf  much  con- 
tamination from  the  branches  of  his  employ  ?  Or 
might  not  he  so  deal  out  his  encouragement  to  the 
deserving,  as  to  confirm  them  in  all  their  purposes 
of  sobriety  ?  Or  might  not  he  interpose  the  shield 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES,  l6i 

of  his  countenance  and  his  testimony  between  a 
?truggUng  youth  and  the  ridicule  of  his  acquaintan- 
ces ?  Or,  by  the  friendly  conversation  of  half  an 
hour,  might  he  not  strengthen  within  him  every 
principle  of  virtuous  resistance  ?  By  these,  and  by 
a  thousand  other  expedients,  which  will  readily 
suggest  themselves  to  him  who  has  the  good  will, 
might  not  a  healing  water  be  sent  forth  through  the 
most  corrupted  of  all  our  establishments  ;  and  it  be 
made  safe  for  the  unguarded  young  to  officiate  in 
its  chambers  ;  and  it  be  made  possible  to  enter  up- 
on the  business  of  the  world  without  entering  upon 
such  a  scene  of  temptation,  as  to  render  almost  in- 
evitable the  vice  of  the  world,  and  its  impiety,  and 
its  final  and  everlasting  condemnation  ?  Would 
Christians  only  be  open  and  intrepid,  and  carry 
their  religion  into  their  merchandise  ;  and  furnish 
us  w*ith  a  single  hundred  of  such  houses  in  this  city, 
w^here  the  care  and  character  of  the  master  formed 
a  guarantee  for  the  sobriety  of  all  his  dependants, 
it  would  be  like  the  clearing  out  of  a  piece  of  culti- 
vated ground  in  the  midst  of  a  frightful  wilderness  : 
and  parents  would  know  whither  they  could  repair 
with  confidence  for  the  settlement  of  their  offspring  ; 
and  we  should  behold,  what  is  mightily  to  be  de- 
sired, a  line  of  broad  aud  visible  demarcation  be- 
tween the  church  and  the  world  ;  and  an  interest 
so  precious  as  the  immortality  of  children,  would  no 
longer  be  left  to  the  play  of  such  fortuitous  elements 
as  operated  at  random  throughout  the  confiiscd  mass 

14* 


162  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

of  a  mingled  and  indiscriminate  society.  And  thus, 
the  pieties  of  a  father's  house  might  bear  to  be 
transplanted  even  into  the  scenes  of  ordinary  bus- 
iness ;  and  instead  of  withering,  as  they  do  at  pres- 
ent, under  a  contagion  which  spreads  in  every  di- 
rection, and  fills  up  the  whole  face  of  the  communi- 
ty, they  might  flourish  in  that  moral  region  which 
was  occupied  by  a  peculiar  people,  and  which  they 
had  reclaimed  from  a  world  that  lieth  in  wicked- 
ness. 


DISCOURSE  VII. 

ON  THE   VITIATING  INFLUENCE  OF  THE   HIGHER 
UPON  THE  LOWER,  ORDERS  OF  SOCIETY. 


*'  Then  said  he  unto  the  disciples,  it  is  inapossible  but  that  offeii= 

ces  will  come  :  but  wo  unto  him  through  whom  they  come  !  It 

t     were  better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about  his  neck, 

and  he  cast  into  the  sea,  than  that  he  should  offend  one  of  these 

little  ones." — Lvke  xvii.  1,  2. 

To  offend  another,  according  to  the  common  ac- 
ceptation of  the  words,  is  to  displease  him.  Now, 
this  is  not  its  acceptation  in  the  verse  before  us,  nor 
in  several  other  verses  of  the  New  Testament.  It 
were  coming  nearer  to  the  scriptural  meaning  of 
the  term,  had  we,  instead  of  offence  and  offending, 
adopted  the  terms,  scandal  and  scandalizing.  But 
the  full  signification  of  the  phrase,  to  offend  anoth- 
er, is  to  cause  him  to  fall  from  the  faith  and  obedi- 
ence of  the  gospel.  It  may  be  such  a  falling  away 
as  that  a  man  recovers  himself — like  the  disciples, 
who  were  all  offended  in  Christ,  and  forsook  him  ; 
and,  after  a  season  of  separation,  were  at  length  re- 
established in  their  discipleship.  Or  it  may  be  such 
a  falling  away  as  that  there  is  no  recovery — like 
those  in  the  gospel  of  John,  who,  offended  by  the 


[64  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

sayings  of  our  Saviour,  went  back,  and  walked  no 
more  with  him.  If  you  put  such  a  stumbling-block 
in  the  way  of  a  neighbour,  who  is  walking  on^  a 
course  of  christian  disciplcship,  as  to  make  him 
fall,  you  offend  him.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  our 
Saviour  uses  the  word,  when  he  speaks  of  your  own 
right  hand,  or  your  own  right  eye  offending  you. 
They  may  do  so  by  giving  you  an  occasion  to  fall. 
And  what  is  here  translated  offend,  is,  in  the  first 
epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  translated  to  make  to 
offend  ;  where  Paul  says,  "  If  meat  make  my  brother 
to  offend,  I  will  eat  no  more  flesh  while  the  world 
standeth,  lest  1  make  my  brother  to  offend." 

The  little  ones  to  whom  our  Saviour  alludes,  in 
this  passage,  he  elsewhere  more  fully  particularises, 
by  telling  us,  that  they  are  those  who  believe  in  him. 
There  is  no  call  here  for  entering  into  any  contro- 
versy about  the  doctrine  of  perseverance.  It  is  not 
necessary,  either  for  the  purpose  of  explaining,  or 
of  giving  force  to  the  practical  lesson  of  the  text 
now  submitted  to  you.  We  happen  to  be  as  much 
satisfied  with  the  doctrine,  that  he  who  hath  a  real 
faith  in  the  gospel  of  Christ  will  never  fall  away, 
as  we  are  satisfied  with  the  truth  of  any  identical 
proposition.  If  a  professing  disciple  do,  in  fact, 
fall  away,  this  is  a  phenomenon  which  might  be 
traced  to  an  essential  defect  of  principle  at  the  first ; 
which  proves,  in  fact,  that  he  made  the  mistake  of 
one  principle  for  another  ;  and  that,  while  he  thought 
he  had  the  faith,  it  was  not  that  very  faith  of  the 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  160 

New  Testament  which  is  unto  salvation.  There 
might  have  been  the  semblance  of  a  work  of  grace, 
without  its  reality.  Such  a  work,  if  genuinely  be- 
gun, will  be  carried  onwards  even  unto  perfection. 
But  this  is  a  point  on  which  it  is  not  at  all  necessary, 
at  present  to  dogmatize.  We  are  led,  by  the  text, 
to  expatiate  on  the  guilt  of  that  one  man  who  has 
wrecked  the  interest  of  another  man's  eternity. 
Now,  it  may  be  very  true,  that  if  the  second  has  ac- 
tually entered  within  the  strait  gate,  it  is  not  in  the 
power  of  the  first,  with  all  his  artifices,  and  all  his 
temptations,  to  draw  him  out  again.  But  instead 
of  having  entered  the  gate,  he  may  only  be  on  the 
road  that  leads  to  it ;  and  it  is  enough,  amid  the 
uncertainties  which,  in  this  life,  hang  over  the  ques- 
tion of — who  are  really  believers,  and  who  are  not  ? 
that  it  is  not  known  in  which  of  these  two  condi- 
tions the  little  one  is  ;  and  that,  therefore,  to  seduce 
him  from  obedience  to  the  wqll  of  Christ,  may,  in 
fact,  be  to  arrest  his  progress  towards  Christ,  and 
to  draw  him  back  unto  the  perdition  of  his  soul. 
The  whole  guilt  of  the  text  may  be  realized  by  him 
who  keeps  back  another  from  the  church,  where  he 
might  have  heard,  and  heard  with  acceptance,  that 
word  of  life  which  he  has  not  yet  accepted  ;  or  by 
him,  whose  influence  or  whose  example  detains,  in 
the  entanglement  of  any  one  sin,  the  acquaintance 
who  is  meditating  an  outset  on  the  path  of  decided 
Christianity — seeing,  that  every  such  outset  will 
land  in  disappointment  those  who,  in  the  act  of  fol- 


166  CHALMEPxS'  DISCOURSES. 

lowing  after  Christ,  do  not  forsake  all ;  or  by  him 
who  tampers  with  the  conscience  of  an  apparently 
zealous  and  confirmed  disciple,  so  as  to  seduce  him 
into  some  habitual  sin,  either  of  neglect  or  of  per- 
formance— seeing,  that  the  individual  who  but  for 
this  seduction  might  have  cleaved  fully  unto  the 
Lord,  and  turned  out  a  prosperous  and  decided 
Christian,  has  been  led  to  put  a  good  conscience 
away  from  him — and  so,  by  making  shipwreck  of  his 
faith,  has  proved  to  the  world,  that  it  was  not  the 
faith  w^hich  could  obtain  the  victory^  It  is  true, 
that  it  is  not  possible  to  seduce  the  elect.  But  even 
this  suggestion,  perverse  and  unjust  as  it  would  be 
in  its  application,  is  not  generally  present  to  the 
mind  of  him  wlio  is  guilty  of  the  attempt  to  seduce, 
or  of  the  art  which  carries  a  seducing  influence 
along  with  it.  The  guilt  with  which  he  is  chargea- 
ble, is  that  of  an  inditference  to  the  spiritual  and 
everlasting  fate  of  others.  He  is  wilfully  the  occa- 
sion of  causing  those  w^ho  are  the  little  ones,  or,  for 
any  thing  he  knows,  might  have  been  the  little  ones 
of  Christ,  to  fall ;  and  it  is  against  him  that  our 
Saviour,  in  the  text,  lifts  not  a  cool  but  an  impas- 
sioned testimony.  It  is  of  him  that  he  utters  one  of 
the  most  severe  and  solemn  denunciations  of  the 
gospel. 

If  this  text  were  thoroughly  pursued  into  its  man- 
ifold applications,  it  would  be  found  to  lay  a  weight 
of  fearful  responsibihty  upon  us  all.  We  are  here 
called  upon  not  to  work  out  our  own  salvation,  but 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  167 

to  compute  the  reflex  influence  of  all  our  works, 
and  of  all  our  ways,  on  the  principles  of  others. 
And  when  one  thinks  of  the  mischief  which  this  in- 
fluence might  spread  around  it,  even  from  Christ^ 
ians  of  chiefest  reputation  ;  when  one  thinks  of  the 
readiness  of  man  to  take  shelter  in  the  example  of 
an  acknowledged  superior  ;  when  one  thinks  that 
some  inconsistency  of  ours  might  seduce  another 
into  such  an  imitation  as  overbears  the  reproaches 
of  his  own  conscience,  and  as,  by  vitiating  the  sin- 
gleness of  his  eye,  makes  the  whole  of  his  body,  in- 
stead of  being  full  of  light,  to  be  full  of  darkness  : 
when  one  takes  the  lesson  along  with  him  into  the 
various  conditions  of  life  he  may  be  called  by  Prov- 
idence to  occupy,  and  thinks,  that  if,  either  as  a 
parent  surrounded  by  his  family,  or  as  a  master  by 
the  members  of  his  establishment,  or  as  a  citizen 
by  the  many  observers  of  his  neighbourhood  around 
him,  he  shall  either  speak  such  words,  or  do  such 
actions,  or  administer  his  affairs  in  such  a  way  as  is 
unworthy  of  his  high  and  immortal  destination,  that 
then  a  taint  of  corruption  is  sure  to  descend  from 
such  an  exhibition,  upon  the  immortals  who  are  on 
every  side  of  him  ;  when  one  thinks  of  himself  as 
the  source  and  the  centre  of  a  conta;iion  which 
might  bring  a  blight  upon  the  graces  and  the  pros- 
pects of  other  souls  besides  his  own — surely  this  is 
enough  to  supply  him  with  a  reason  why,  in  work- 
ing out  his  own  personal  salvation,  he  should  do  i! 


168  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

with  fear,  and  with  watchfulness,  and  with  much 
trembhng. 

But  we  are  now  upon  the  ground  of  a  higher  and 
more  delicate  conscientiousness,  than  is  generally 
to  be  met  with.  Whereas,  our  object,  at  present  is 
to  expose  certain  of  the  grosser  offences  which 
abound  in  society,  and  which  spread  a  most  danger- 
ous and  ensnaring  influence  among  the  individuals 
who  compose  it.  To  this  we  have  been  insensibly 
led,  by  the  topics  of  that  discourse  which  we  ad- 
dressed to  you  on  a  former  occasion  ;  and  when  it 
fell  in  our  way  to  animadvert  on  the  magnitude  of 
that  man"'s  guilt,  who,  either  by  his  example,  or  his 
connivance,  or  his  direct  and  formal  tuition,  can 
speed  the  entrance  of  the  yet  unpractised  young  on 
a  career  of  dissipation.  And  whether  he  be  a  pa- 
rent, who,  trenched  in  this  world's  maxims,  can, 
without  a  struggle,  and  without  a  sigh,  leave  his 
helpless  offspring  to  take  their  random  and  unpro- 
tected way  through  this  world's  conformities  ;  or 
whether  he  be  one  of  those  seniors  in  depravity, 
who  can  cheer  on  his  more  youthful  companion  to 
a  surrender  of  all  those  scruples,  and  all  those  deli- 
cacies, which  have  hitherto  adorned  him  ;  or  wheth- 
er he  be  a  more  aged  citizen,  who,  having  run  the 
wonted  course  of  intemperance,  can  cast  an  ap- 
proving eye  on  the  corruption  throughout  all  its 
stages,  and  give  a  tenfold  force  to  all  its  alhire- 
ments,  by  setting  up  the  authority  of  grave  and  re- 
formed manhood  upon  its  side  ;  in  each  of  these  cba- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  l69 

raeters  do  we  see  an  offence  that  is  pregnant  with 
deadliest  mischief  to  the  principles  of  (he  rising 
generation  ;  and  while  we  are  told,  by  our  text, 
that,  for  such  offences,  there  exists  some  deep  and 
mysterious  necessity — insomuch,  that  it  is  impossi- 
ble but  that  offences  must  come — yet  let  us  not  for- 
get to  urge  on  every  one  sharer  in  this  work  of  mo- 
ral contamination,  that  never  does  the  meek  and 
gentle  Saviour  speak  in  terms  more  threatening,  or 
more  reproachful,  than  when  he  speaks  of  the  enor- 
mity of  such  misconduct.  There  cannot,  in  truth, 
be  a  grosser  outrage  committed  on  the  order  of  God's 
administration,  than  that  which  he  is  in  the  habit  of 
inflicting.  There  cannot,  surely,  be  a  directer  act  of 
rebellion,  than  that  which  multiplies  the  adherents 
of  its  own  cause,  and  that  which  swells  the  hosts  of 
the  rebellious.  There  cannot  be  made  to  rest  a 
feller  condemnation  on  the  head  of  iniquity,  than 
that  which  is  sealed  by  the  blood  of  its  own  victims, 
and  its  own  proselytes.  Nor  should  we  wonder 
when  that  is  said  of  such  an  agent  for  iniquity  which 
is  said  of  the  betrayer  of  our  Lord.  It  were  better 
for  him  that  he  had  not  been  born.  It  were  better 
for  him  now  that  he  is  born,  could  he  be  committed 
back  again  to  deep  annihilation,  Rather  than  that 
he  should  offend  one  of  these  little  ones,  it  were 
better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about 
his  neck,  and  he  were  cast  into  the  sea. 

This  is  one  case  of  such  offences  as  are  adverted 
to  in  the  text.     Another  and  still  more  specific  is 

Id 


170  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

beginning,  we  understand,  to  be  exenDplified  in  our 
own  city,  though  it  has  not  attained  to  the  height  or 
to  the  frequency  at  which  it  occurs  in  a  neighbour- 
ing metropohs.  We  allude  to  the  doing  of  week- 
day business  upon  the  Sabbath.  We  allude  to  that 
violence  which  is  rudely  offered  to  the  feelings  and 
the  associations  of  sacredness,  by  those  exactions 
that  an  ungodly  nnaster  lays  at  times  on  his  youthful 
dependants— when  those  hours  which  they  wont  to 
spend  in  church,  they  are  called  upon  to  spend  in 
the  counting-house — when  that  day,  which  ought 
to  be  a  day  of  piety,  is  turned  into  a  day  of  posting 
and  of  penmanship — when  the  rules  of  the  deca- 
logue are  set  aside,  and  utterly  superseded  by  the 
rules  of  the  great  trading  establishment ;  and  every 
thing  is  made  to  give  way  to  the  hurrying  emergen- 
cy of  orders,  and  clearances,  and  the  demands  of 
instant  correspondence.  Such  is  the  magnitude  of 
this  stumbling-block,  that  many  is  the  young  man 
who  has  here  fallen  to  rise  no  more — that,  at  this 
point  of  departure,  he  has  so  widened  his  distance 
from  God,  as  never,  in  fact,  to  return  to  him — that, 
in  this  distressing  contest  between  principle  and 
necessity,  the  final  blow  has  been  given  to  his  reli- 
gious principles — that  the  master  whom  he  serves, 
and  under  whom  he  earns  his  provision  for  time,  has 
here  wrested  the  whole  interest  of  his  eternity  away 
from  him — that,  from  this  moment,  there  gathers 
upon  his  soul  the  complexion  of  a  hardier  and  more 
determined  impiety — and  conscience  once   stifled 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  J  71 

now  speaks  to  him  with  a  feebler  voice — and  the 
world  obtains  a  firmer  lodgement  in  his  heart — and, 
renouncing  all   his   original  tenderness  about  Sab- 
bath, and    Sabbath    employments,    he    can    now, 
with  the  thorough  unconcern  of  a  fixed  and  famil- 
iarised proselyte,  keep  equal  pace  by  his  fellows 
throughout    every    scene   of  profanation — and  he 
who  wont  to  tremble  and  recoil  from  the  freedoms 
of  irreligion  with  the  sensibility  of  a  little  one,  may 
soon  become  the  most  daringly  rebellious  of  them 
all — and  that   Sabbath  which  he  has  now  learned 
at  one  time,  to  give    to  business,  he,   at  another, 
gives  to  unhallowed  enjoyments — and  it  is  turned 
into  a  day  of  visits  and    excursions,   given   up    to 
pleasure,  and  enlivened  by  all  the  mirth  and  extra- 
vagance of  holiday — and,  when  sacrament  is  pro- 
claimed from  the  city  pulpits,  he,  the  apt,  the  well 
trained  disciple  of  his  corrupt  and  corrupting  supe- 
rior, is  the  readiest  to  plan  the  amusements  of  the 
commg  opportunity,  and  among  the  very  foremost 
in  the  ranks  of  emigration — and  though  he  may  look 
back,  at  times,  to  the  Sabbath  of  his  father's  pious 
house,  yet  the  retrospect  is  always  becoming  dim- 
mer, and  at  length  it  ceases  to  disturb  him — and 
thus  the  alienation  widens  every  year,  till,  wholly 
given  over  to  impiety,  he  lives  without  God  in  the 
world. 

And  were  we  asked  to  state  the  dimensions  of 
that  iniquity  wl-ich  S'.T'ks  regordlcssly,  and  at  hr^e, 
over  the  ruin  of  youihful  principles — were  we  ask- 


172  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

cd  to  find  a  place  in  the  catalogue  of  guilt  for  a 
crime,  the  atrocity  of  which  is  only  equalled,  we 
understand,  by  its  frequency — were  we  called  to 
characterise  the  man  who,  so  far  from  attempting 
one  counteracting  influence  against  the  profligacy 
of  his  dependents,  issues,  from  the  chair  of  author- 
ity on  which  Lc  sits,  a  commandment,  in  the  direct 
face  of  a  commandment  from  God — the  man  who 
has  chartered  impiety  in  articles  of  agreement,  and 
has  vested  himself  with  a  property  in  that  time  which 
only  belongs  to  the  Lord  of  the  Sabbath — were  we 
asked  to  look  to  the  man  who  could  thus  overbear 
the  last  remnants  of  remorse  in  a  struggling  and  un- 
practised bosom,  and  glitter  in  all  the  ensigns  of  a 
prosperity  that  is  reared  on  the  violated  conscien- 
ces of  those  who  are  beneath  him — O !  were  the 
question  put,  to  whom  shall  we  liken  such  a  man  ? 
or  what  is  the  likeness  to  which  we  can  compare 
him  ?  we  would  say,  that  the  guilt  of  him  who  traf- 
ficked on  the  highway,  or  trafficked  on  that  outrag- 
ed coast,  from  whose  weeping  families  children  were 
inseparably  torn,  was  far  outmeasured  by  the  guilt 
which  could  thus  frustrate  a  father's  fondest  prayers, 
and  trample  under  foot  the  hopes  and  the  prepara- 
tions of  eternity. 

There  is  another  way  whereby  in  the  employ  of 
a  careless  and  unprincipled  master,  it  is  impossible 
but  that  offences  must  come.  You  know  just  as 
well  as  we  do,  that  there  are  chicaneries  in  busi- 
ness ;  and,  so  long  as  we  forbear  stating  the  precise^ 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  173 

extent  of  them,  there  is  not  an  individual  among 
you  who  has  a  title  to  construe  the  assertion  into 
an  affronting  charge  of  criminality  against  himself. 
But  you  surely  know  as  well  as  we,  that  the  mercan- 
tile profession,  conducted,  as  it  often  is,  with  the 
purest  integrity,  and  laying  no  resistless  necessity 
whatever  for  the  surrender  of  principle  on  any  of 
its  members  ;  and  dignified  by  some  of  the  noblest 
exhibitions  of  untainted  honour,  and  devoted  friend- 
ship, and  magnificent  generosity,  that  have  ever 
been  recorded  of  our  nature  ; — you  know  as  well 
as  we,  that  it  was  utterly  extravagant,  and  in  the 
face  of  ail  observation,  to  affirm,  that  each,  and  ev- 
ery one  of  its  numerous  competitors,  stood  clearly 
and  totally  exempted  from  the  sins  of  an  undue  sel- 
fishness. And,  accordingly,  there  are  certain  com- 
modious falsehoods  occasionally  practised  in  this 
department  of  human  affairs.  There  are,  for  ex- 
ample, certain  dexterous  and  gainful  evasions, 
whereby  the  payers  of  tribute  are  enabled,  at  times, 
to  make  their  escape  from  the  eagle  eye  of  the  ex- 
actors of  tribute.  There  arc  even  certain  contests 
of  ingenuity  betwen  individual  traders,  where  in  the 
higgling  of  a  very  keen  and  anxious  negociation, 
each  of  them  is  tempted  in  talking  of  offers  and 
prices,  and  the  reports  of  fluctuations  in  home  and 
foreign  markets,  to  say  the  things  which  are  not. 
You  must  assuredly  know,  that  these,  and  such  as 
these,  then,  have  introduced  a  certain  quantity  of 
what  may  be  called  shuflling,  into  the  communica- 


174  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

tions  of  the  trading  world — insomuch,  that  the  sim- 
'  phcity  of  yea,  yea,  and  nay,  nay,  is  in  some  degree 
exploded  ;  and  there  is  a  kind  of  understood  tolera- 
tion estabhshed  for  certain  modes  of  expressionf 
.  which  could  not,  we  are  much  afraid,  stand  the  ri- 
gid scrutiny  of  the  great  day  ;  and  there  is  an  abate- 
ment of  confidence  between  man  and  man,  imply- 
ing, we  doubt,  such  a  proportionate  abatement  of 
truth,  as  goes  to  extend  most  fearfully  the  condem- 
nation that  is  due  to  all  liars,  who  shall  have  their 
part  in  the  lake  that  burneth  with  tire  and  brimstone. 
And  who  can  compute  the  eifect  of  all  this  on  the 
young  and  yet  unpractised  observer  ?  Who  does 
not  see,  that  it  must  go  to  reduce  the  tone  of  his 
principles ;  and  to  involve  him  in  many  a  delicate 
struggle  between  the  morality  he  has  learned  Irom 
his  catechism,  and  the  morality  he  sees  m  the  count- 
ing house ;  and  to  obliterate,  in  his  mind,  the  dis- 
tinctions between  right  and  wrong ;  and,  at  lengthy 
to  reconcile  his  conscience  to  a  sin  which,  like  eve- 
ry other,  deserves  the  wrath  and  the  curse  of  God  ; 
and  to  make  him  tamper  with  a  direct  command- 
ment, in  such  a  way,  as  that  falsehoods  and  frauds 
might  be  nothing  more  in  his  estimation,  than  the 
peccadilloes  of  an  innocent  compl.aixe  with  the 
current  practises  and  moralities  of  the  world  ? 
Here  then  is  a  point,  at  which  the  way  of  those  who 
conform  to  this  world,  diverges  from  the  way  of 
those  peculiar  people  who  are  redeemed  from  all 
iniquity,  and  are  thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  175 

works.  Here  is  a  grievous  occasion  to  fall.  Here 
is  a  competition  between  the  service  of  God  and  the 
service  of  Mammon.  Here  is  the  exhibition  of 
another  offence,  and  the  bringing  forward  of  anoth- 
er temptation,  to  those  who  are  entering  on  the  bu- 
siness of  the  world,  little  adverted  to,  we  fear,  hj 
those  who  live  in  utter  carelessness  of  their  own 
souls,  and  never  spend  a  thought  or  a  sigh  about 
the  immortahty  of  others — but  most  distinctly  sin- 
gled out  by  the  text  as  a  crime  of  foremost  magni- 
tude in  the  eye  of  Him  who  judgeth  righteously. 

And  before  we  quit  the  subject  of  such  oftences 
as  take  place  in  ordinary  trade,  let  us  just  advert  to 
one  example  of  it — not  so  much  for  the  frequency 
of  its  occurrence,  as  for  the  way  that  it  stands  con- 
nected in  principle  with  a  very  general,  and,  we 
believe,  a  very  mischievous  offence,  that  takes  place 
in  domestic  society.  It  is,  neither,  you  will  ob- 
serve, the  avarice  nor  the  selfishness  of  our  nature, 
which  forms  the  only  obstruction  in  the  way  of  one 
man  dealing  plainly  with  another.  There  is  anoth- 
er obstruction,  founded  on  a  far  more  pleasing  and 
amiable  principle — even  on  that  delicacy  of  feeling, 
in  virtue  of  which,  one  man  cannot  bear  to  wound 
or  to  mortify  another.  It  would  require,  for  in- 
stance, a  very  rare,  and  certainly,  not  a  very  envi- 
able degree  of  hardihood,  to  tell  another,  without 
pain,  that  you  did  not  think  him  worthy  of  being 
trusted.  And  yet  in  the  doings  of  merchandise, 
this  is  the  very  trial  of  delicacy  which  sometimes 


176  CHALMERS^  DISCOURSES. 

offers  itself.  The  man  with  whom  you  stand  com- 
mitted to  as  great  an  extent  as  you  count  to  be  ad- 
viseable,  would  like,  perhaps,  to  try  your  confidence 
in  him,  and  his  own  credit  with  you  a  little  farther  ; 
and  he  comes  back  upon  you  with  a  fresh  order  ; 
and  you  secretly  have  no  desire  to  link  any  more 
of  your  properly  with  his  speculation  ;  and  the  dif- 
ficulty is,  how  to  get  the  application  in  question 
disposed  of  ;  and  you  feel  that  by  far  the  pleasantest 
way,  to  all  the  parties  concerned,  would  be,  to 
make  him  believe  that  you  refuse  the  application 
not  because  you  will  not  comply,  but  because  you 
cannot — for  that  you  have  no  more  of  the  article  he 
wants  from  you  upon  hand.  And  it  would  only  be 
putting  your  own  soul  to  hazard,  did  you  personally 
and  by  yourself  make  this  communication  ;  but  you 
select,  perhaps,  as  the  organ  of  it  some  agent  or  un- 
derling of  your  establishment,  who  knows  it  to  be 
false  ;  and  to  avoid  the  soreness  of  a  personal  en- 
counter with  the  man  whom  you  are  to  disappoint, 
you  devolve  the  whole  business  of  this  lying  apolo- 
gy upon  others  ;  and  thus  do  you  continue  to  shift 
this  oppressive  burden  away  from  you — or,  in  other 
words,  to  save  your  own  delicacy,  you  count  not, 
and  you  care  not,  about  another's  damnation. 

Now,  what  we  call  upon  you  to  mark,  is  the  per- 
fect identity  of  principle  between  this  case  of  mak- 
ing a  brother  to  offend,  and  another  case  which 
obtains,  we  have  heard,  to  a  very  great  extent 
among  the  most  genteel  and  opulent  of  our  city  fam- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  177 

ilies.  In  this  case,  you  put  a  lie  into  the  mouth  of 
a  dependant,  and  that,  for  the  purpose  of  protecting 
your  substance  from  such  an  appHcation  as  might 
expose  it  to  hazard  or  diminution.  In  the  second 
case,  you  put  a  he  into  the  mouth  of  a  dependent, 
and  that,  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  your  time 
from  such  an  encroachment  as  you  would  not  feel 
to  be  convenient  or  agreeable.  And,  in  both  cases, 
you  are  led  to  hold  out  this  offence  by  a  certam  del- 
icacy of  temperament,  in  virtue  of  which,  you  can 
neither  give  a  man  plainly  to  understand,  that  you 
are  not  willing  to  trust  him,  nor  can  you  give  him 
to  understand,  that  you  count  his  company  to  be  an 
interruption.  But,  in  both  the  one  and  the  other 
example,  look  to  the  little  account  that  is  made  of 
a  brother's  or  of  a  sister's  eternity  ;  behold  the 
guilty  task  that  is  thus  unmercifully  laid  upon  one 
who  is  shortly  to  appear  before  the  judgment-seat 
of  Christ ;  think  of  the  entanglement  which  is  thus 
made  to  beset  the  path  of  a  creature  who  is  unper- 
ishable.  That,  at  the  shrine  of  Mammon,  such  a 
bloody  sacritice  should  be  rendered  by  some  ot  his 
unrelenting  votaries,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  ; 
but  that  the  shrine  of  elegance  and  fashion  should 
be  bathed  in  blood — that  soft  and  sentimental  lady- 
ship should  put  forth  her  hand  to  such  an  enormity 
— that  she  who  can  sigh  so  gently,  and  shed  her 
graceful  tear  over  the  sufferings  of  others,  should 
thus  be  accessary  to  the  second  and  more  awful 
death  of  her  own  domestics — that  one  who  looks 


178  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

the  mildest  and  the  lovehest  of  human  beings,  should 
exact  obedience  to  a  mandate  which  carries  wrath, 
and  tribulation,  and  anguish,  in  its  train — O  !  how 
it  should  confirm  every  Christian  in  his  defiance  to 
the  authority  of  fashion,  and  lead  him  to  spurn  at 
all  its  folly,  and  all  its  worlhlessness. 

And  it  is  quite  in  vain  to  say,  that  the  servant 
whom  you  thus  employ  as  the  deputy  of  your  false- 
hood, can  possibly  execute  the  commission  without 
the  conscience  being  at  all  tainted  or  defiled  by  it : 
that  a  simple  cottage  maid  can  so  sophisticate  the 
matter,   as,   without  any  violence  to  her  original 
principles,  to  utter  the  language  of  what  she  assu- 
redly knows  to  be  a  downright  lie  ;  that  she,  humble 
and  untutored  soul,  can  sustain  no  injury  when  thus 
made  to   tamper  with  the  plain  English  of  these 
realms ;  that  she  can  at  all  satisfy  herself,  how,  by 
the  prescribed  utterance  of  **  not  at  home,"  she  is 
not  pronouncing  such  words  as    are  substantially 
untrue,  but  merely  using  them  in  another  and  per- 
fectly understood  meaning — and  which^  according 
to  their  modern  translation,  denote,  that  the  person 
of  whom  she  is  thus  speaking,  instead  of  being  away 
from  home,  is  secretly  lurking  in  one  of  the  most 
secure  and  intimate  of  its  receptacles.     You   may 
try  to  darken  and  transform  this  piece  of  casuistry 
as  you  will  ;  and  work  up  your  own  minds  into  the 
peaceable  conviction  that  it  is  all  right,   and  as  it 
should  be.     But  be   very  certain,  that  where  the 
moral  sense  of  your  domestic  is  not  already  over- 


CHALiMERS'  DISCOURSES.  179 

thrown,  there  is  at  least,  one  bosom  within  which 
you  have  raised  a  war  of  doubts  and  of  difficulties  ; 
and  where,  if  the  victory  be  on  your  side,  it  will  be 
on  the  side  of  him  who  is  the  great  enemy  of  righ- 
teousness. There  is,  at  least,  one  person  along 
the  hne  of  this  conveyance  of  deceit,  who  con- 
demneth  herself  in  that  whichshe  alloweth  ;  who, 
in  the  language  of  Paul,  esteeming  the  practice 
to  be  unclean,  to  her  will  it  be  unclean  ;  who 
will  perform  her  task  with  the  offence  of  her  own 
conscience,  and  to  whom  therefore  it  will  indeed 
be  evil ;  who  cannot  render  obedience  in  this  mat- 
ter to  her  earthly  superior,  but  by  an  act  in  which 
she  does  not  stand  clear  and  unconscious  of  guilt 
before  God  ;  and  with  whom,  therefore,  the  sad 
consequence  of  what  we  can  call  nothing  else 
than  a  barbarous  combination  against  the  principles 
and  the  prospects  of  the  lower  orders,  is — that  as 
she  has  not  cleaved  fully  unto  the  Lord,  and  has  not 
kept  by  the  service  of  the  one  master,  and  has  not 
forsaken  all  at  his  bidding,  she  cannot  be  the  disci- 
ple of  Christ. 

The  aphorism,  that  he  who  offendeth  in  one  point 
is  guilty  of  all,  tells  us  something  more  than  of  the 
way  in  which  God  adjudges  condemnation  to  the 
disobedient.  It  also  tells  us  of  the  way  in  which 
one  individual  act  of  sinfulness  operates  upon  our 
moral  nature.  It  is  altogether  an  erroneous  view 
of  the  commandments,  to  look  upon  them  as  so 
many  observances  to  which  we  are  bound  by  as 
many  distinct  and  independent  ties  of  obligation — 


180  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

insomuch,  that  the  transgression  of  one  of  them  may 
be  brought  about  by  the  dissolution  of  one  separate 
tie,  and  may  leave  all  the  others  with  as  entire  a 
constraining  influence  and  authority  as  before.  The 
truth  is,  that  the  commandments  ought  rather  to  be 
looked  upon  as  branching  out  from  one  great  and 
general  tie  of  obligation  ;  and  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  loosening  the  hold  of  one  of  them  upon  the 
conscience,  but  by  the  unfastening  of  that  tie  which 
binds  them  all  upon  the  conscience.  So  that  if  one 
member  in  the  system  of  practical  righteousness  be 
made  to  suffer,  all  the  other  members  suffer  along 
with  it ;  and  if  one  decision  of  the  moral  sense  be 
thwarted,  the  organ  of  the  moral  sense  is  perma- 
nently impaired,  and  a  leaven  of  iniquity  infused 
mto  all  its  other  decisions  ;  and  if  one  suggestion  of 
this  inward  monitor  be  stifled,  a  general  shock  is 
given  to  his  authority  over  the  whole  man  ;  and  if 
one  of  the  least  commandments  of  the  law  is  left 
unfulfilled,  the  law  itself  is  brought  down  from  its 
rightful  ascendancy  ;  and  thus  it  is,  that  one  act  of 
disobedience  may  be  the  commencement  and  the 
token  of  a  systematic  universal  rebelliousness  of  the 
heart  against  God.  It  is  this  which  gives  such  a 
wide-wasting  malignity  to  each  of  the  separate  of- 
fences on  which  we  have  now  expatiated.  It  is 
this  which  so  multiplies  the  means  and  the  possibili- 
ties of  corruption  in  the  world.  It  is  thus  that,  at 
every  one  point  in  the  intercourse  of  human  socie- 
ty, there  may  be  struck  out  a  fountain  of  poisonous 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  181 

emanation  on  all  who  approach  it ;  and  think  not, 
therefore,  that  under  each  of  the  examples  we  have 
given,  we  were  only  contending  for  the  preservation 
of  one  single  feature  in  the  character  of  him  who 
stands  exposed  to  this  world's  offences.  We  felt  it 
in  fact  to  be  a  contest  for  his  eternity  ;  and  that  the 
case  involved  in  it  his  general  condition  with  God  ; 
and  that  he  who  leads  the  young  into  a  course  of 
dissipation — or  that  he  who  tampers  with  their  im- 
pressions of  Sabbath  sacredness — or  that  he  who, 
either  in  the  walks  of  business,  or  in  the  services  of 
the  family,  makes  them  the  agents  of  deceitfulness 
— or  that  he,  in  short,  who  tempts  them  to  trans- 
gress in  any  one  thing,  has,  in  fact,  poured  such  a 
pervading  taint  into  their  moral  constitution,  as  to 
spoil  or  corrupt  them  in  all  things  ;  and  that  thus, 
upon  one  sohtary  occasion,  or  by  the  exhibition  of 
one  particular  offence,  a  mischief  may  be  done 
equivalent  to  the  total  destruction  of  a  human  soul, 
or  to  the  blotting  out  of  its  prospects  for  immortal- 
ity. 

And  let  us  just  ask  a  master  or  a  mistress,  w^ho 
can  thus  make  free  with  the  moral  principle  of  their 
servants  in  one  instance,  how  they  can  look  for  pure 
or  correct  principle  from  them  in  other  instances  ? 
What  right  have  they  to  complain  of  unfaithfulness 
against  themselves,  who  have  deliberately  seduced 
another  into  a  habit  of  unfaithfulness  against  God  / 
Are  they  so  utterly  unskilled  in  the  mysteries  of  our 
nature,  as  not  to  perceive,  that  if  a  man  gather  har- 

16 


182  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

dihood  enough  to  break  the  Sabbath  in  opposition 
to  his  own  conscience,  this  very  hardihood  will  avail 
him  to  the  breaking  of  other  obligations  ? — that  he 
whom,  for  their  advantage,  they  have  so  exercised, 
as  to  fill  his  conscience  with  offence  towards  his 
God,  will  not  scruple,  for  his  own  advantage,  so  to 
exercise  himself,  as  to  till  his  conscience  with  of- 
fence towards  his  master  ? — that  the  servant  whom 
you  have  taught  to  lie,  has  gotten  such  rudiments  of 
education  at  your  hand,  as  that,  without  any  further 
help,  he  can  now  teach  himself  to  purloin  ? — and 
yet  nothing  more  frequent  than  loud  and  angry  com- 
plainings against  the  treachery  of  servants  ;  as  if, 
in  the  general  wreck  of  their  other  principles,  a 
principle  of  consideration  for  the  good  and  interest 
of  their  employer — and  who,  at  the  same  time,  has 
been  their  seducer — was  to  survive  in  all  its  power, 
and  all  its  sensibility.  It  is  just  such  a  retribution 
as  was  tc  be  looked  for.  It  is  a  recoil  upon  their 
own  heads  of  the  mischief  which  they  themselves 
have  originated.  It  is  the  temporal  part  of  the 
punishment  which  they  have  to  bear  for  the  sin  of 
our  text,  but  not  the  whole  of  it ;  for  better  for 
them  that  both  person  and  property  were  cast  into 
the  sea,  than  that  they  should  stand  the  reckoning 
of  that  day,  when  called  to  give  an  account  of  the 
souls  that  they  have  murdered,  and  the  blood  of  so 
mighty  a  destruction  is  required  at  their  hands. 

The  evil  against  which  we  have  just  protested,  is 
an  outrage  of  far  greater  enormity  than  tyrant  of 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  183 

oppressor  can  inflict,  in  the  prosecution  of  his  worst 
designs  against  the  poHtical  rights  and  hberties  of 
the  commonwealth.  The  very  semblance  of  such 
designs  will  summon  every  patriot  to  his  post  of  ob- 
servation :  and,  from  a  thousand  watch-towers  of 
alarm,  will  the  outcry  of  freedom  in  danger  be  heard 
throughout  the  land.  But  there  is  a  conspiracy  of 
far  more  malignant  influence  upon  the  destinies  of 
the  species  that  is  now  going  on  ;  and  which  seems 
to  call  forth  no  indignant  spirit,  and  to  bring  no  gen- 
erous exclamation  along  with  it.  Tliroughout  all 
the  recesses  of  private  and  domestic  history,  there 
is  an  ascendency  of  rank  and  station  against  which 
no  stern  republican  is  ever  heard  to  lift  his  voice — 
though  it  be  an  ascendency,  so  exercised,  as  to  be 
of  most  noxious  operation  to  the  dearest  hopes  and 
best  interests  of  humanity.  There  is  a  cruel  com- 
bination of  the  great  against  the  majesty  of  the  peo- 
ple— we  mean  the  majesty  of  the  people's  worth. 
There  is  a  haughty  unconcern  about  an  inheritance, 
which,  by  an  unalienable  right,  should  be  theirs — 
we  mean  their  future  and  everlasting  inheritance. 
There  is  a  deadly  invasion  made  on  their  rights — 
we  mean  their  rights  of  conscience  :  and,  in  this 
our  land  of  boasted  privileges,  are  the  low  trampled 
upon  by  the  high — we  mean  trampled  into  all  the 
degradation  of  guilt  and  of  worthlessness.  They 
are  utterly  bereft  of  that  homage  which  ought  to  be 
rendered  to  the  dignity  of  their  immortal  nature ; 
and  to  minister  to  the  avarice  of  an  imperious  mas- 


i84  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

ter,  or  to  spare  the  sickly  delicacy  of  the  fashiona- 
bles in  our  land,  are  the  truth  and  the  piety  of  our 
population,  and  all  the  virtues  of  their  eternity, 
most  unfeelingly  plucked  away  from  them.  It  be- 
longs to  others  to  fight  the  battle  of  their  privileges 
in  time.  But  who  that  looks  with  a  calculating  eye 
on  their  duration  that  never  ends,  can  repress  an 
alarm  of  a  higher  order  ?  It  belongs  to  others  gen- 
erously to  struggle  for  the  place  and  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  lower  orders  in  the  great  vessel  of  the 
state.  But,  surely,  the  question  of  their  place  in 
eternity  is  of  mightier  concern  than  how  they  are 
to  sit  and  be  accommodated  in  that  pathway  ve- 
hicle which  takes  them  to  their  everlasting  habita- 
tions. 

Christianity  is,  in  one  sense,  the  greatest  of  all 
levellers.  It  looks  to  the  elements,  and  not  to  the 
circumstantials  of  humanity  ;  and  regarding  as  alto- 
gether superficial  and  temporary  the  distinctions  of 
this  fleeting  pilgrimage,  it  fastens  on  those  points  of 
assimilation  which  liken  the  king  upon  the  throne 
to  the  very  humblest  of  his  subject  population. 
They  are  alike  in  the  nakedness  of  their  birth. 
They  are  alike  in  the  sureness  of  their  decay. 
They  are  alike  in  the  agonies  of  their  dissolution. 
And  after  the  one  is  tombed  in  sepulchral  magnifi- 
cence, and  the  other  is  laid  in  his  sod-wrapt  grave, 
are  they  most  fearfully  alike  in  the  corruption  to 
which  they  moulder.  But  it  is  with  the  immortal 
nature  of  each  that  Christianity  has  to  do;  and,  in 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  185 

both  the  one  and  the  other,  does  it  hehold  a  nature 
alike  forfeited  by  guilt,  and  alike  capable  of  being 
restored  by  the  grace  of  an  otfered  salvation.     And 
never  do  the  pomp  and  the  circumstance  of  exter- 
nals  appear  more  humiliating,  than  when  looking 
onwards  to  the  day  of  resurrection,  we  behold  the 
sovereign  standing  without  his  crown,  and  trembling, 
with  the  subject  by  his  side  at  the  bar  of  heaven's 
majesty.     There  the   master  and  the  servant  will 
be  brought  to  their  reckoning  together  ;  and  when 
the  one  is  tried  upon  the  guilt  and  the  malignant 
influence  of  his  Sabbath  companies — and  is  charg- 
ed with  the  profane  and  careless  habit  of  his  house- 
hold establishment — and  is  reminded  how  he  kept 
both  himself  and  his  domestics  from  the  solemn  or- 
dinance— ?ind  is   made  to  perceive  the  fearful  ex- 
tent of  the  moral  and  spiritual  mischief  which  he 
has  wrought  as  the  irreligious  head  of  an  irreligious 
family — and  how,  among  other  things  he,  under  a 
system  of  fashionable  hypocrisy,  so  tampered  with 
another's  principles  as  to  defile  his  conscience,  and 
to  destroy  him — O  I  how  tremendously  will  the  lit- 
tle brief  authority  in  which  he  now  plays  his  fantas- 
tic tricks,  turn  to  his  own  condemnation  ;  for,  than 
thus  abuse  his  authority,  it  were  better  for  him  that 
a  millstone  were  hanged  about  his  neck,   and  he 
were  cast  into  the  sea. 

And  how  comes  it,  we  ask,  that  any  master  is 
armed  with  a  power  so  destructive  over  the  immor- 
tals who  are  around  him/     God  has  given  him  no 

16-^ 


186  CHALMERS^  DISCOUfiSES. 

such  power.  The  state  has  not  given  it  to  him. 
There  is  no  law,  either  human  or  divine,  by  which 
he  can  enforce  any  order  upon  his  servants  to  an 
act  of  falsehood,  or  to  an  act  of  impiety.  Should  any 
such  act  of  authority  be  attempted  on  the  part  of 
the  master,  it  should  be  followed  up  on  the  part  of 
the  servant  by  an  act  of  disobedience.  Should  your 
piaster  or  mistress  bid  you  say  not  at  home,  when 
you  know  that  they  are  at  home,  it  is  your  duty  to  re- 
fuse compliance  with  such  an  order :  and  if  it  be 
asked,  how  can  this  matter  be  adjusted  after  such 
a  violent  and  alarming  innovation  on  the  laws  of 
fashionable  intercourse,  we  answer,  just  by  the  sim- 
ple substitution  of  truth  for  falsehood — just  by  pre- 
scribing the  utterance  of,  engaged,  which  is  a  fact 
instead  of  the  utterance  of,  not  at  home,  which  is  a 
lie — just  by  holding  the  principles  of  your  servant 
to  be  of  higher  account  than  the  false  delicacies  of 
your  acquaintance — just  by  a  bold  and  vigorous  re- 
currence to  the  simplicity  of  nature — just  by  deter- 
minedly doing  what  is  right,  though  the  example  of 
a  whole  host  were  against  you  ;  and  by  giving  im- 
pulse to  the  current  of  example,  when  it  happens  to 
be  moving  in  a  proper  direction.  And  here  we  are 
happy  to  say  that  fashion  has  of  late  been  making  a 
capricious  and  accidental  movement  on  the  side  of 
principle — and  to  be  blunt,  and  open^  and  manly, 
is  now  on  the  fair  way  to  be  fashionable — and  a  tem- 
per of  homelier  quality  is  beginning  to  infuse  itself 
into  the  luxuriousness,  and  the  effeminacy,  and  the 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  iS7 

palling  and  excessive  complaisance  of  genteel  soci- 
ety— and  the  staple  of  cultivated  manners  is  im- 
proving in  firmness,  and  frankness,  and  honesty,  and 
may,  at  length,  by  the  aid  of  a  principle  of  Chris- 
tian rectitude,  be  so  interwoven  with  the  cardinal 
virtues,  as  to  present  a  different  texture  altogether 
from  the  soft  and  the  silken  degeneracy  of  modern 
days. 

And  that  we  may  not  appear  the  champions  of  an 
insurrection  against  the  authority  of  masters,  let  us 
further  say,  that  while  it  is  the  duty  of  clerk  or  ap- 
prentice to  refuse  the  doing  of  week-day  work  on 
the  Sabbath,  and  while  it  is  the  duty  of  servants  to 
refuse  the  utterance  of  a  prescribed  falsehood,  and 
while  it  is  the  duty  of  every  dependent,  in  the  ser- 
vice of  his  master,  to  serve  him  only  in  the  Lord — 
yet  this  very  principle,  tending,  as  it  may  to  a  rare 
and  occasional  act  of  disobedience,  is  also  the  prin- 
ciple which  renders  every  servant  who  adlieres  to 
it  a  perfect  treasure  of  fidelity,  and  attachment,  and 
general  obedience.  This  is  the  way  in  which  to 
obtain  a  credit  for  his  refusal,  and  to  stamp  upon  it 
a  noble  consistency.  In  this  way  he  will,  even  to 
the  mind  of  an  ungodly  master,  make  up  for  all  his 
particularities  :  and  should  he  be  what,  if  a  Chris- 
tian, he  will  be;  should  he  be,  at  all  times,  the 
most  alert  in  service,  and  the  most  patient  of  provo- 
cation, and  the  most  cordial  in  affection,  and  the 
most  scrupulously  honest  in  the  charge  and  custody 
of  all  that  is  committed  to  him — then  let  the  post  of 


188  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

drudgery  at  which  he  toils  be  humble  as  it  may,  the 
contrast  between  the  meanness  of  his  office  and  the 
dignity  of  his  character  will  only  heighten  the  rev- 
erence that  is  due  to  principle,  and  make  it  more 
illustrious.  His  scruples  may,  at  first,  be  the  topics 
of  displeasure,  and  afterwards  the  topics  of  occa- 
sional levity  ;  but,  in  spite  of  himself,  will  his  em- 
ployer be  at  length  constrained  to  look  upon  them 
w^ith  respectful  toleration.  The  servant  will  be  to 
the  master  a  living  epistle  of  Christ,  and  he  may 
read  there  what  he  has  not  yet  perceived  in  the  let- 
ter of  the  New  Testament.  He  may  read,  in  the 
person  of  his  own  domestic,  the  power  and  the  truth 
of  Christianity.  He  may  positively  stand  in  awe 
of  his  own  hired  servant — and,  regarding  his  bosom 
as  a  sanctuary  of  worth  which  it  were  monstrous  to 
violate,  will  he  feel,  when  tempted  to  olFer  one  com- 
mand of  impiety,  that  he  cannot,  that  he  dare  not. 

And,  before  we  conclude,  let  us,  if  possible,  try  to 
rebuke  the  wealthy  out  of  their  unfeeling  indiifer- 
ence  to  the  souls  of  the  poor,  by  the  example  of  the 
Saviour.  Let  those  who  look  on  the  immortality 
of  the  poor  as  beneath  their  concern,  only  look  un- 
to Christ — to  him  who,  for  the  sake  of  the  poorest 
of  us  all,  became  poor  himself,  that  we,  through  his 
poverty,  might  be  made  rich.  Let  them  think  how 
the  principle  of  all  these  offences  which  we  have 
been  attempting  to  expose,  is  in  the  direct  face  of 
that  principle  which  prompted,  at  first,  and  which 
still  presides  over,  the  whole  of  the  gospel  dispen- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  18^ 

sation.  Let  them  learn  a  higher  reverence  for  the 
eternity  of  those  beneath  them,  by  thinking  of  him, 
who,  to  purchase  an  inheritance  for  the  poor,  and 
to  provide  them  with  the  blessings  of  a  preached 
gospel,  unrobed  him  of  all  his  greatness  ;  and  de- 
scended himself  to  the  lot  and  the  labours  of  pov- 
erty ;  and  toiled,  to  the  beginning  of  his  pubhc  min- 
istry at  the  work  of  a  carpenter  ;  and  submitted  to 
all  the  horrors  of  a  death  which  was  aggravated  by 
the  burden  of  a  world's  atonement  and  made  in- 
conceivably severe  by  there  being  infused  into  it  all 
the  bitter  of  expiation.  Think,  O  think,  .when 
some  petty  design  of  avarice  or  vanity  would  lead 
you  to  forget  the  imperishable  souls  of  those  who 
are  beneath  you,  that  you  are  setting  yourselves  in 
diametric  opposition  to  that  which  lieth  nearest  to 
the  heart  of  the  Saviour  ;  that  you  are  counter- 
vailing the  whole  tendency  of  his  redemption  ;  that 
you  are  thwarting  the  very  object  of  that  enter- 
prise for  which  all  heaven  is  represented  as  in  mo- 
tion— and  angels  are  with  wonder  looking  on — and 
God  the  Father  laid  an  appointment  on  the  Son  of 
his  love — and  he,  the  august  personage  in  whom 
the  magnificent  train  of  prophecy,  from  the  begin- 
ning of  the  world,  has  its  theme  and  its  fulfilment, 
at  length  came  amongst  us,  in  shrouded  majesty, 
and  was  led  to  the  cross,  like  a  lamb  for  the  slaugh- 
ter, and  bowed  his  head  in  agony,  and  gave  up  the 
ghost. 

And  here  let  us  address  one  word  more  to  the 


190  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

masters  and  mistresses  of  families.  By  adopting 
the  reformations  to  which  we  have  been  urging  you, 
you  may  do  good  to  the  cause  of  Christianity,  and 
yet  not  advance,  by  a  single  hair-breadth,  the 
Christianity  of  your  own  souls.  It  is  not  by  this 
one  reformation,  or,  indeed,  by  any  given  number 
of  reformations,  that  you  are  saved.  It  is  by  be- 
heving  in  Christ  that  men  are  saved.  You  may  es- 
cape, it  is  sure,  a  higher  degree  ofpunishment,  but 
you  will  not  escape  damnation.  You  may  do  good 
to  the  souls  of  your  servants,  by  a  rigid  observance 
of  the  lesson  of  this  day.  But  we  seek  the  good  of 
your  own  souls  also,  and  we  pronounce  upon  them 
that  they  are  in  a  state  of  death,  till  one  great  act 
be  performed,  and  one  act,  too,  which  does  not  con- 
sist of  any  number  of  particular  acts,  or  particular 
reformations.  What  shall  1  do  to  be  saved  ?  Be- 
heve  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved.  And  he  who  believeth  not,  the  wrath  of 
God  abide th  on  him.  Do  this,  if  you  want  to  make 
the  great  and  important  transition  for  yourselves. 
Do  this  if  you  want  your  own  name  to  be  blotted 
out  of  the  book  of  condemnation.  If  you  seek  to 
have  your  own  persons  justified  before  God,  sub- 
mit to  the  righteousness  of  God — even  that  right- 
eousness which  is  through  the  faith  of  Christ,  and 
is  unto  all  and  upon  all  who  believe.  This  is  the 
turning  point  of  your  acceptance  with  the  Lawgiv- 
er. And  at  this  step,  also,  in  the  history  of  your 
souls,  will  there  be  applied  to  you  a  power  of  mo- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  191 

tive,  and  will  you  be  endowed  with  an  obedient  sen- 
sibility to  the  influence  of  motive,  which  will  make 
it  the  turning  point  of  a  new  heart  and  a  new  char- 
acter. The  particular  reformation  that  we  have 
been  urging  will  be  one  in  a  crowd  of  other  refor- 
mations ;  and,  in  the  spirit  of  him  who  pleased  not 
himself,  but  gave  up  his  life  for  others,  will  you 
forego  all  the  desires  of  selfishness  and  vanity,  and 
look  not  merely  to  your  own  things,  but  also  to  the 
things  of  others. 


DISCOURSE  VIU. 

ON  THE  LOVE  OF  MONEY 


■'If  I  have  made  gold  my  hope,  or  have  said  to  the  fine  gold, 
Thou  art  my  confidence  ;  If  ^  rejoiced  because  my  wealth  was 
great,  and  because  mine  hand  had  gotten  much  ;  If  I  beheld 
the  sun  when  it  shined,  or  the  moon  walking  in  brightness  ;  and 
my  heart  hath  been  secretly  enticed,  or  my  mouth  hath  kissed 
my  hand  ;  this  also  were  an  iniquity  to  be  punished  by  the 
judge  ;  for  I  should  have  denied  the  God  that  is  above." — 
Job  xxxi.  24 — 28. 

What  is  worthy  of  remark  in  this  passage  is,  that 
a  certain  aifection  only  known  among  the  votaries 
of  Paganism,  should  be  classed  under  the  same  cha- 
racter and  have  the  same  condemnation  with  an 
affection,  not  only  known,  but  allowed,  nay  cherish- 
ed into  habitual  supremacy,  all  over  Christendom. 
How  universal  it  is  among  those  who  are  in  pursuit 
of  wealth,  to  make  gold  their  hope,  and  among 
those  who  are  in  possession  of  wealth,  to  make  line 
gold  their  confidence  !  Yet  we  are  here  told  that 
this  is  virtually  as  complete  a  renunciation  of  God 
as  to  practise  some  of  the  worst  charms  of  idolatry. 
And  it  might  perhaps  serve  to  unsettle  the  vanity  of 
those  who,  unsuspicious  of  the  disease  that  is  in  their 
hearts,  are   wholly  given  over  to  this  world,  and 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  193 

wholly  without  alarm  in  their  anticipations  of  anoth- 
er,— could  we  convince  them  that  the  most  reigning 
and  resistless  desire  by  which  they  are  actuated, 
stamps  the  same  perversity  on  them,  in  the  sight  of 
God,  as  he  sees  to  be  in  those  who  are  worshippers 
of  the  sun  in  the  firmament,  or  are  offering  incense 
to  the  moon  as  the  queen  of  heaven. 

We  recoil  from  an  idolater,  as  from  one  who  la- 
bours under  a  great  moral  derangement,  in  suffering 
his  regards  to  be  carried  away  from  the  true  God  to 
an  idol.  But,  is  it  not  just  the  same  derangement, 
on  the  part  of  man,  that  he  should  love  any  created 
good,  and  in  the  enjoyment  of  it  lose  sight  of  the 
Creator — that  he  should  delight  himself  with  the 
use  and  the  possession  of  a  gift,  and  be  unaffected 
by  the  circumstance  of  its  having  been  put  into  his 
hands  by  a  giver — that,  thoroughly  absorded  with 
the  present  and  the  sensible  gratification,  there 
should  be  no  room  left  for  the  movements  of  duty 
or  regard  to  the  Being  who  furnished  him  with  the 
materials,  and  endowed  him  with  the  organs,  of  eve- 
ry gratification, — that  he  should  thus  lavish  all  his 
desires  on  the  surrounding  materialism,  and  fetch 
from  it  all  his  delights,  while  the  thought  of  him 
who  formed  it  is  habitually  absent  from  his  heart — 
that,  in  the  play  of  those  attractions  that  subsist  be- 
tween him  and  the  various  objects  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  his  person,  there  should  be  the  same  want 
of  reference  to  God,  as  there  is  in  the  play  of  those 
attractions  which  subsist  between  a  piece  of  uncon- 

!7 


191  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSE^. 

scions  matter  and  the  other  matter  that  is  around  it 
— that  all  the  influences  which   operate   upon  the 
human  will  should  emanate  from  so  many  various 
points  in  the  mechanism  of  what  is  formed,  but  that 
no  practical  or  ascendant  influence  should  come 
down   upon  it   from   the   presiding   and   the  pre- 
serving Deity  ?  Why,  if  such  be  man,  he   could 
not  be  otherwise,   though  there   were  no   Deity, 
The   part  he   sustains  in  the   world  is   the  very 
sarae  that    it  would  have   been,  had   the   world 
sprung   into  being  of  itself,   or  without  an  origi- 
nating mind  had  maintained  its  being  from  eter- 
nity.    He  just  puts  forth  the  evolutions  of  his  own 
nature,  as  one  of  the  most  component  individuals  in 
a  vast  independent  system  of  nature,  made  up  of 
many  parts  and  many  individuals.     In  hungering 
for  what  is  agreeable  to  his  senses,  or  recoiling  from 
what  is  bitter  or  unsuitable  to  them,  he  does  so 
without  thinking  of  God,  or  borrowing  any  impulse 
to  his  own  will  from  any  thing  he  knows  or  believes 
to  be  the  will  of  God.     Rehgion  has  just  as  httle  to 
do  with  those  daily  movements  of  his  which  are  vol- 
untary as  it  has  to  do  with  the  growth  of  his  body, 
which  is  involuntary ;  or,  as  it  has  to   do,  in  other 
words,  with  the  progress  and  the  phenomena  of  ve-^ 
getation.     With  a  mind  that  ought  to  know  God, 
and  a  conscience  that  ought  to  award  to  him  the  su- 
preme jurisdiction,  he   lives  as  effectually  without 
him,  as  if  he  had  no  mind  and  no  conscience  ;  and 
bating  a  few  transient  visitations  of  thought,  and,  a 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  195 

few  regularities  of  outward  and  mechanical  obser- 
vation,  do  we  behold  man  running,  and  willing,  and 
preparing,  and  enjoying,  just  as  if  there  was  no  oth- 
er portion  than  the  creature — just  as  if  the  world, 
and  its  visible  elements,  formed  the  all  with  which 
he  had  to  do. 

I  wish  to  impress  upon  you  the  distinction  that 
there  is  between  the  love  of  money,  and  the  love  oi 
what  money  purchases.  Either  of  these  affections 
may  equally  displace  God  from  the  heart.  But 
there  is  a  malignaty  and  an  inveteracy  of  atheism  in 
the  former  which  does  not  belong  to  the  latter,  and 
in  virtue  of  which  it  may  be  seen  that  the  love  of 
money  is,  indeed,  the  root  of  all  evil. 

When  we  indulge  the  love  of  that  which  is  pur- 
chased by  money,  the  materials  of  gratilication, 
and  the  organs  of  gratification  are  present  with  each 
other — just  as  in  the  enjoyments  of  the  inferior  an- 
imals, and  just  as  in  all  the  simple  and  immediate 
enjoyments  of  man  *,  such  as  the  tasting  of  food,  or 
the  smelling  of  a  flower.  There  is  an  adaptation 
of  the  senses  to  certain  external  objects,  and  there 
is  a  pleasure  arising  out  of  that  adaptation,  and  it  h 
a  pleasure  which  may  be  felt  by  man,  along  with  a 
right  and  a  full  infusion  of  godliness.  The  primitive 
Christians,  for  example,  ate  their  meat  with  glad- 
ness and  singleness  of  hear',  praising  God.  But, 
in  the  case  of  every  unconverted  man,  the  pleasure 
has  no  such   accompaniment.     He  carries  in  his 


m  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

heart  no  recognition  of  that  hand,  by  the  opening  oi 
which  it  is,  that  the  means  and  the  materials  of  enjoy- 
ment are  placed  within  his  reach.  The  matter  of  the 
enjoyment  is  all  with  which  he  is  conversant.  The 
Author  of  the  enjoyment  is  unheeded.  The  avidity 
with  which  he  rushes  onward  to  any  of  the  direct  grati- 
fications of  nature  bears  a  resemblance  to  the  avid- 
ity with  which  one  of  the  lower  creation  rushes  to 
its  food,  or  to  its  water,  or  to  the  open  field,  where 
it  gambols  in  all  the  wantonness  of  freedom,  and 
finds  a  high-breathed  joy  in  the  very  strength  and 
velocity  of  its  movements.  And  the  atheism  of  the 
former,  who  has  a  mind  for  the  sense  and  knowledge 
of  his  Creator,  is  often  as  entire  as  the  atheism  of 
the  latter,  who  has  it  not.  Man,  who  ought  to 
look  to  the  primary  cause  of  all  his  blessings,  be- 
cause he  is  capable  of  seeing  thus  far,  is  often  as 
blind  to  God,  in  the  midst  of  enjoyment,  as  the  an- 
imal who  is  not  capable  of  seeing  him.  He  can 
trace  the  stream  to  its  fountain  ;  but  still  he  drinks 
of  the  stream  with  as  much  greediness  of  pleasure, 
and  as  little  recognition  of  its  source,  as  the  animal 
beneath  him.  In  other  words,  his  atheism,  while 
tastittg  the  bounties  of  Providence,  is  just  as  com- 
plete, as  is  the  atheism  of  the  inferior  animals. 
But  theirs  proceeds  from  their  incapacity  of  know- 
ing God.  His  proceeds  from  his  not  liking  to  re- 
tain God  in  his  knowledge.  He  may  come  under 
the  power  of  godliness,  if  he  would.     But  he  choos- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  197 

es  rather  that  the  power  of  sensuality  should  lord  it 
over  him,  and  his  whole  man  is  engrossed  with  the 
objects  of  sensuality. 

But  a  man  differs  from  an  animal  in  being  some- 
thing more  than  a  sensitive  being,  He  is  also  a  re- 
flective being.  He  has  the  power  of  thought,  and 
inference,  and  anticipation,  to  signalize  him  above 
the  beasts  of  the  field,  or  of  the  forest  ;  and  yet  will 
it  be  found,  in  the  case  of  every  natural  man,  that 
the  exercise  of  those  powers,  so  far  from  having 
carried  him  nearer,  has  only  widened  his  departure 
from  God,  and  given  a  more  deliberate  and  wilful 
character  to  his  atheism,  than  if  he  had  been  without 
them  altogether. 

In  virtue  of  the  powers  of  mind  which  belong  to 
him,  he  can  carry  his  thoughts  beyond  the  present 
desires  and  the  present  gratification.  He  can  cal- 
culate on  the  visitations  of  future  desire,  and  on  the 
means  of  its  gratification.  He  cannot  only  follow 
out  the  impulse  of  hunger  that  is  now  upon  him  5 
he  can  look  onwards  to  the  successive  and  recurring 
impulses  of  hunger  which  await  him,  and  he  can 
devise  expedients  for  relieving  it.  Out  of  that  great 
stream  of  supply,  which  comes  direct  from  Heaven 
to  earth,  for  the  sustenance  of  all  its  living  gener- 
ations, he  can  draw  oft"  and  appropriate  a  separate 
rill  of  conveyance,  and  direct  it  into  a  reservoir  for 
himself.  He  can  enlarge  the  capacity,  or  he  can 
strengthen  the  embankments  of  this  reservoir.     By 

17  * 


198  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

doing  the  one,  he  augments  his  proportion  of  this 
common  tide  of  wealth  which  circulates  through 
the  world,  and  by  doing  the  other,  he  augments  his 
security  for  holding  it  in  perpetual  possession.  The 
animal  who  drinks  out  of  the  stream  thinks  not 
whence  it  issues.  But  man  thinks  of  the  reservoir 
which  yields  to  him  his  portion  of  it.  And  he  looks 
no  further.  He  thinks  not  that  to  fill  it,  there  must 
be  a  great  and  original  fountain,  out  of  which  there 
issueth  a  mighty  floodof  abundance  for  the  purpose 
of  distribution  among  all  the  tribes  and  families  of 
the  world.  He  stops  short  at  the  secondary  and 
artificial  fabric  which  he  himself  hath  formed,  and 
out  of  which,  as  from  a  spring,  he  draws  his  own 
peculiar  enjoyments  ;  and  never  thinks  either  of 
his  own  peculiar  supply  fluctuating  with  the  va- 
riations of  the  primary  spring,  or  of  connecting 
these  variations  with  the  will  of  the  great  but  un- 
seen director  of  all  things.  It  is  true,  that  if  this 
main  and  originating  fountain  be,  at  any  time,  less 
copious  in  its  emission,  he  will  have  less  to  draw 
from  it  to  his  own  reservoir  ;  and  in  that  very  pro- 
portion will  his  share  of  the  bounties  of  Providence 
be  reduced.  But  still  it  is  to  the  well,  or  recepta- 
cle, of  his  own  striking  out  that  he  looks,  as  his 
main  security  for  the  relief  of  nature's  wants,  and 
the  abundant  supply  of  nature's  enjoyments.  It  is 
upon  his  own  work  that  he  depends  in  this  matter, 
a«d  not  on  the  work  or  the  will  of  him  who  is  the 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  199 

Authoi*  of  nature  ;  who  giveth  rain  from  heaven 
and  fruitful  seasons,  and  filleth  every  heart  with  food 
and  gladness.  And  thus  it  is  that  the  reason  of 
man,  and  the  retrospective  power  of  man,  still  fail 
to  carry  him,  by  an  ascending  process,  to  the  First 
Cause.  He  stops  at  the  instrumental  cause,  which, 
by  his  own  wisdom  and  his  own  power,  he  has  put 
into  operation.  In  a  word,  the  man's  understand- 
ing is  over-run  with  atheism,  as  well  as  his  desires. 
The  intellectual  as  well  as  the  sensitive  part  of  his 
constitution  seems  to  be  infected  with  it.  When, 
like  the  instinctive  and  unreflecting  animal,  he  en- 
gages in  the  act  of  direct  enjoyment,  he  is  like  it, 
too,  in  its  atheism.  When  he  rises  above  the  ani- 
mal, and,  in  the  exercise  of  his  higher  and  larger 
faculties,  he  engages  in  the  act  of  providing  for 
enjoyment,  he  still  carries  his  atheism  along  with 
him. 

A  sum  of  money  is,  in  all  its  functions,  equivalent 
to  such  a  reservoir.  Take  one  year  with  another, 
and  the  annual  consumption  of  the  world  cannot 
exceed  the  annual  produce  which  issues  from  the 
storehouse  of  him  who  is  the  great  and  the  bounti- 
ful Provider  of  all  its  famihes.  The  money  that  is 
in  any  man's  possession  represents  the  share  which 
he  can  appropriate  to  himself  of  this  produce.  If  it 
be  a  large  sum,  it  is  like  a  capacious  reservoir  on 
the  bank  of  the  river  of  abundance.  If  it  be  laid 
out  on  firm  and  stable  securities,  still  it  is  like  a 


200  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

firmly  embanked  reservoir.  The  man  who  toils  to 
increase  his  money  is  like  a  man  who  toils  to  en- 
large the  capacity  of  his  reservoir.  The  man  who 
suspects  a  flaw  in  his  securities,  or  who  apprehends, 
in  the  report  of  failures  and  fluctuations,  that  his 
money  is  all  to  flow  away  from  him,  is  like  a  man 
who  apprehends  a  flaw  in  the  embankments  of  his 
reservoir.  Meanwhile,  in  all  the  care  that  is  thus 
expended,  either  on  the  money  or  on  the  magazine, 
the  originating  source,  out  of  which  there  is  impart- 
ed to  the  one  all  its  real  worth,  or  there  is  imparted 
to  the  other  all  its  real  fulness,  is  scarcely  ever 
thought  of.  Let  God  turn  the  earth  into  a  barren 
desert,  and  the  money  ceases  to  be  convertible  to 
any  purpose  of  enjoyment ;  or  let  him  lock  up  that 
magazine  of  great  and  general  supply,  out  of  which 
he  showers  abundance  among  our  habitations,  and 
all  the  subordinate  magazines  formed  beside  the 
wonted  stream  of  liberality,  would  remain  empty. 
But  all  this  is  forgotten  by  the  vast  majority  of  our 
imthoughtful  and  unreflecting  species.  The  pa- 
tience of  God  is  still  unexhausted  ;  and  the  seasons 
still  roll  in  kindly  succession  over  the  heads  of  an 
ungrateful  generation  ;  and  that  period,  when  the 
machinery  of  our  present  system  shall  stop  and  be 
taken  to  pieces  has  not  yet  arrived  ;  and  that  Spirit, 
who  will  not  always  strive  with  the  children  of  men, 
is  still  prolonging  his  experiment  on  the  powers  and 
the  perversities  of  our  moral  nature ;  and  still  sus' 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  201' 

pending  the  edict  of  dissolution,  by  which  this  earth 
and  these  heavens  are  at  length  to  pass  away.  So 
that  the  sun  still  shines  upon  us  ;  and  the  clouds 
still  drop  upon  us  ;  and  the  earth  still  puts  forth  the 
bloom  and  the  beauty  of  its  luxuriance  ;  and  all  the 
ministers  of  heaven's  liberality  still  walk  their  an- 
nual round,  and  scatter  plenty  over  the  face  of  an 
alienated  world  ;  and  the  whole  of  nature  contin- 
ues as  smiling  in  promise,  and  as  sure  in  fultilment, 
as  in  the  days  of  our  forefathers  ;  and  out  of  her 
large  and  universal  granary  is  there,  in  every  re- 
turning year,  as  rich  a  conveyance  of  aliment  as  be- 
fore, to  the  populous  family  in  whose  behalf  it  is 
opened.  But  it  is  the  business  of  many  among 
that  population,  each  to  erect  his  own  separate  gra- 
nary, and  to  replenish  it  out  of  the  general  store, 
•and  to  feed  himself  and  his  dependents  out  of  it. 
And  he  is  right  in  so  doing.  But  he  is  not  right  in 
looking  to  his  own  peculiar  receptacle,  as  if  it  were 
the  first  and  the  emanating  fountain  of  all  his  enjoy- 
ments. He  is  not  right  in  thus  idolising  the  work 
of  his  own  hands — awarding  no  glory  and  no  confi- 
dence to  him  in  whose  hands  is  the  key  of  that  great 
storehouse,  out  of  which  every  lesser  storehouse  of 
man  derives  its  fulness.  He  is  not  right,  in  labour- 
ing after  the  money  which  purchaseth  all  things,  to 
avert  the  earnestness  of  his  regards  from  the  Be- 
ing who  provides  all  things.  He  is  not  right,  in 
thus  building  his  security  on  that  which  is  subordin- 


202  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

ate,  unheeding  and  unmindful  of  him  who  is  su- 
preme. It  is  not  right,  that  silver,  and  gold,  though 
unshaped  into  statuary,  should  still  be  doing,  in  this 
enlightened  land,  what  the  images  of  Paganism  once 
did.  It  is  not  right,  that  they  should  thus  supplant 
the  deference  which  is  owing  to  the  God  and  the 
governor  of  all  things — or  that  each  man  amongst 
us  should  in  the  secret  homaire  of  trust  and  satisfac- 
tion  which  he  renders  to  his  bills,  and  his  deposits, 
and  his  deeds  of  property  and  possession,  endow 
these  various  articles  with  the  same  moral  ascend- 
ency over  his  heart,  as  the  household  gods  of  anti- 
quity had  over  the  idolaters  of  antiquity — making 
them  as  effectually  usurp  the  place  of  the  divinity, 
and  dethrone  the  one  Monarch  of  heaven  and  earth 
from  that  pre-eminence  of  trust  and  of  afiection  that 
belong  tojbim. 

He  who  makes  a  god  of  his  pleasure,  renders  to 
this  idol  the  homage  of  his  senses.  He  who  makes 
a  god  of  his  wealth,  renders  to  this  idol  the  homage 
of  his  mind  ;  and  he,  therefore,  of  the  two,  is  the 
more  hopeless  and  determined  idolater.  The  for- 
mer is  goaded  on  to  his  idolatry,  by  the  power  of 
appetite.  The  latter  cultivates  his  with  wilful  and 
deliberate  perseverance  ;  consecrates  his  very  high- 
est powers  to  its  service ;  embarks  in  it,  not  with 
the  heat  of  passion,  but,  with  the  coolness  of  steady 
and  calculating  principle  ;  (ally  gives  up  his  reason 
and  his  time,  and  all  the  faculties  of  his  understand- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  20$ 

ing,  as  well  as  all  the  desires  of  his  heart,  to  the 
great  object  of  a  fortune  in  this  world ;  makes  the 
acquirement  of  gain  the  settled  aim,  and  the  prose- 
cution of  that  aim  the  settled  habit  of  his  existence  ; 
sits  the  whole  day  long  at  the  post  of  his  ardent  and 
unremitting  devotions  ;  and,  as  he  labours  at  the 
desk  of  his  counting-house,  has  his  soul  just  as  ef- 
fectually seduced  from  the  living  God  to  an  object 
distinct  from  him,  and  contrary  to  him  as  if  the  ledg- 
er over  which  he  was  bending  was  a  book  of  mystic- 
al characters,  written  in  honour  of  some  golden  idol 
placed  before  him,  and  with  a  view  to  render  this 
idol  propitious  to  himself  and  to  his  family.  Baal 
and  Moloch  were  not  more  substantially  the  gods  of 
rebellious  Israel,  than  Mammon  is  the  god  of  all  his 
affections.  To  the  fortune  he  has  reared,  or  is 
rearing,  for  himself  and  his  descendants,  he  ascribes 
all  the  power  and  all  the  independence  of  a  divini- 
ty. With  the  wealth  he  has  gotten  by  his  own 
hands,  does  he  feel  himself  as  independent  of  God, 
as  the  Pagan  does,  who,  happy  in  the  fancied  pro- 
tection of  an  image  made  with  his  own  hand,  suffers 
no  disturbance  to  his  quiet,  from  any  thought  of  the 
real  but  the  unknown  Deity.  His  confidence  is  in 
his  treasure,  and  not  in  God.  It  is  there  that  he 
places  all  his  safety  and  all  his  sufficiency.  It  is 
not  on  the  Supreme  Being,  conceived  in  the  light  of 
a  real  and  a  personal  agent,  that  he  places  his  de- 
pendence.    It  is  on  a  mute  and  material  statue  of 


204  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

his  own  erection.  It  is  wealth,  which  stands  to  him 
in  the  place  of  God — to  which  he  awards  the  credit 
of  all  his  enjoyments — which  he  looks  to  as  the  em- 
anating fountain  of  all  his  present  sufficiency — from 
which  he  gathers  his  fondest  expectations  of  all  the 
bright  and  fancied  blessedness  that  is  yet  before 
him — on  which  he  rests  as  the  firmest  and  stablest 
foundation  of  all  that  the  heart  can  wish,  or  the  eye 
can  long  after,  both  for  himself  and  for  his  children. 
It  matters  not  for  him,  that  all  his  enjoyment  comes 
firom  a  primary  fountain,  and  that  his  wealth  is  only 
an  intermediate  reservoir.  It  matters  not  to  him, 
that,  if  God  were  to  set  a  seal  upon  the  upper  store- 
house in  heaven,  or  to  blast  and  to  burn  up  all  the 
fruitfulness  of  earth,  he  would  reduce,  to  the  v/orth- 
lessness  of  dross,  all  the  silver  and  the  gold  that 
abound  in  it.  Still  the  gold  and  the  silver  are  his 
gods.  His  own  fountain  is  between  him  and  the 
fountain  of  original  supply.  His  wealth  is  between 
him  and  God.  Its  various  lodging-places,  whether 
in  the  bank,  or  in  the  place  of  registration,  or  in  the 
depository  of  wills  and  title-deeds — these  are  the 
sanctuaries  of  his  secret  worship — these  are  the 
highplaces  of  his  adoration  ;  and  never  did  devout 
Israelite  look  with  more  intentness  towards  Mount 
Zion,  and  with  liis  face  towards  Jerusalem,  than  he 
does  to  his  wealth,  as  to  the  mountain  and  strong- 
hold of  his  security.  Nor  could  the  Supreme  be 
more  elFectually  deposed  from  the  homage  of  trust 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  20$ 

and  gratitude  than  he  actually  is,  though  this  wealth 
were  recalled  from  its  various  investments  ;  and 
turned  into  one  mass  of  gold  ;  and  cast  into  a  piece 
of  molten  statuary  ;  and  enshrined  on  a  pedestal, 
around  which  all  his  household  might  assemble,  and 
make  it  the  object  of  their  family  devotions  ;  and 
plied  every  hour  of  every  day  with  all  the  fooleries 
of  a  senseless  and  degrading  Paganism.  It  is  thus, 
that  God  may  keep  up  the  charge  of  idolatry  against 
us,  even  after  all  its  images  have  been  overthrown. 
It  is  thus  that  dissuasives  from  idola,try  are  still  ad- 
dressed, in  the  New  Testament,  to  the  pupils  of  a 
new  and  better  dispensation ;  that  little  children 
are  warned  against  idols  ;  and  all  of  us  are  warned 
to  flee  from  covetousness,  which  is  idolatry. 

To  look  no  further  than  to  fortune  as  the  dispen- 
ser of  all  the  enjoyments  which  money  can  pur- 
chase, is  to  make  that  fortune  stand  in  the  place  of 
God.     It  is  to  make  sense  shut  out  faith,  and   to 
rob  the  King  eternal  and  invisible  of  that  suprem- 
acy, to  which  all  the  blessings  of  human  existence, 
and  all  the  varieties  of  human  condition,  ought,  in 
every  instance,  and  in  every  particular,  to  be  refer- 
red.    But,  as  we  have  already  remarked,  the  love 
of  money  is  one  affection,  and  the  love  of  what  is 
purchased  by  money  is  another.     It  was  at  first,  we 
have  no  doubt,  loved  for  the  sake  of  the  good  things 
which   it  enabled  its  possessor  to    acquire.     But 
whether,  as  the  result  of  associations  in  the  mind  so 

18      . 


206  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

rapid  as  to  escape  the  notice  of  our  own  conscious- 
ness— or  as  the  fruit  of  an  infection  running  by  sym- 
pathy among  all  men  busily  engaged  in  the  prose- 
cution of  wealth,  as  the  supreme  good  of  their  be- 
ing— certain  it  is,  that  money,  originally  pursued 
for  the  sake  of  other  things,  comes  at  length  to  be 
prized  for  its  own  sake.  And,  perhaps,  there  is  no 
one  circumstance  which  serves  more  to  liken  the 
love  of  money  to  the  most  irrational  of  the  heathen 
idolatries,  than  that  it  at  length  passes  into  the  love 
of  money  for  itself;  and  acquires  a  most  enduring 
power  over  the  human  affections,  separately  alto- 
gether from  the  power  of  purchase  and  of  com- 
mand which  belongs  to  it,  over  the  proper  and  orig- 
inal objects  of  human  desire.  The  tirst  thing  which 
set  man  agoing  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  was  that, 
through  it,  as  an  intervening  medium,  he  found  his 
way  to  other  enjoyments  ;  and  it  proves  him,  as  we 
have  observed,  capable  of  a  higher  reach  of  antici- 
pation than  the  beasts  of  the  held  or  the  fowls  of 
the  air,  that  he  is  thus  able  to  calculate,  and  to  fore- 
see, aud  to  build  up  a  provision  for  the  wants  of  fu- 
turity. But,  mark  how  soon  this  boasted  distinc- 
tion of  his  faculties  is  overthrown,  and  how  near  to 
each  other  lie  the  dignity  and  the  debasement  of 
the  human  understanding.  If  it  evinced  a  loftier 
mind  in  man  than  in  the  inferior  animals,  that  he 
invented  money,  and  by  the  acquisition  of  it  can 
both  secure  abundance  for  himself,  and  transmit 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  SOf 

this  abundance  to  the  future  generations  of  his  fam- 
ily— what  have  we  to  offer,  in  vindication  of  this 
intellectual  eminence,  when  we  witness  how  soon 
it  is,  that  the  pursuit  of  wealth  ceases  to  be  rational ; 
how,  instead  of  being  prosecuted  as  an  instrument, 
either  for  the  purchase  of  ease,  or  the  purchase  of 
enjoyment,  both  the  ease  and  enjoyment  of  a  whole 
life  are  rendered  up  as  sacrifices  at  its  shrine  ?  How-, 
from  being  sought  after  as  a  minister  of  gratitication 
to  the  appetites  of  nature,  it  at  length  brings  nature 
into  bondage,  and  robs  her  of  all  her  simple  de- 
lights, and  pours  the  infusion  of  wormwood  into  the 
currency  of  her  feelings  ? — making  that  man  sad 
who  ought  to  be  cheerful,  and  that  man  who 
ought  to  rejoice  in  his  present  abundance,  filling 
him  either  with  the  cares  of  an  ambition  which  nev- 
er will  be  satisfied,  or  with  the  apprehensions  of  a 
distress  which  in  all  its  pictured  and  exaggerated 
evils  will  never  be  realized.  And  it  is  wonderful, 
it  is  passing  wonderful,  that  wealth,  which  derives  all 
that  is  true  and  sterling  in  its  worth  from  its  subser» 
viency  to  other  advantages,  should,  apart  from  all 
thought  about  this  subserviency,  be  made  the  object 
of  such  fervent  and  fatigumg  devotion.  Insomuch, 
that  never  did  Indian  devotee  inflict  upon  himself 
a  severer  agony  at  the  footstool  of  his  Paganism, 
than  those  devotees  of  wealth  who,  for  its  acquire- 
ment as  their  ultimate  object,  will  forego  all  the 
uses  for  which  alone  it  is  valuable — will  give  up  all 


208  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

that  is  genuine  or  tranquil  in  the  pleasures  of  life  \ 
and  will  pierce  themselves  through  with  manj  sor- 
rows ;  and  will  undergo  all  the  fiercer  tortures  of 
the. mind  ;  and,  instead  of  employing  what  they 
have,  to  smooth  their  passage  through  the  world, 
will,  upon  the  hazardous  sea  of  adventure,  turn  the 
whole  of  this  passage  into  a  storm — thus  exalting 
wealth,  from  a  servant  unto  a  lord,  who,  in  return 
for  the  homage  that  he  obtains  from  his  worshippers, 
exercises  them,  like  Rehoboam  his  subjects  of  old. 
not  with  whips  but  with  scorpions — with  consuming 
anxiety,  with  never-sated  desire,  with  brooding  ap- 
prehension, and  its  frequent  and  ever-flitting  spec- 
tres, and  the  endless  jealousies  of  competition  with 
men  as  intently  devoted,  and  as  emulous  of  a  high 
place  in  the  temple  of  their  common  idolatry,  as 
themselves.  And,  without  going  to  the  higher  ex- 
hibitions of  this  propensity,  in  all  its  rage  and  in  all 
its  restlessness,  we  have  only  to  mark  its  workings 
on  the  walk  of  even  and  every-day  citizenship  ; 
and  there  see,  how,  in  the  hearts  even  of  its  most 
common-place  votaries,  wealth  is  followed  after, 
for  its  own  sake  *,  how,  unassociated  with  all  for 
which  reason  pronounces  it  to  be  of  estimation,  but, 
in  virtue  of  some  mysterious  and  undefinable  charm, 
operating  not  on  any  principle  of  the  judgment,  but 
on  the  utter  perversity  of  judgment,  money  has  come 
to  be  of  higher  account  than  all  that  is  purchased 
by  money,  and  has  attained  a  rank  co-ordinate  with 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  209 

that  which  our  Saviour  assigns  to  the  life  and  to  the 
body  of  man,  in  being  reckoned  more  than  meat 
and  more  than  raiment.  Thus  making  that  which 
is  subordinate  to  be  primary,  and  that  which  is  pri- 
mary subordinate  ;  transferring,  by  a  kind  of  fasci- 
nation, the  affections  away  from  wealth  in  use,  to 
wealth  in  idle  and  unemployed  possession, — inso- 
much, that  the  most  welcome  intelligence  you  could 
give  to  the  proprietor  of  many  a  snug  deposit,  in 
some  place  of  secure  and  progressive  accumulation, 
would  be,  that  he  should  never  require  any  part 
either  of  it  or  of  its  accumulation  back  again  for 
the  purpose  of  expenditure — and  that,  to  the  end  of 
his  life,  every  new  year  should  witness  another  un- 
impaired addition  to  the  bulk  or  the  aggrandisement 
of  his  idol.  And  it  would  just  heighten  his  enjoy- 
ment, could  he  be  told,  with  prophetic  certainty, 
that  this  process  of  undisturbed  augmentation  would 
go  on  with  his  children's  children,  to  the  last  age 
of  the  world  ;  that  the  economy  of  each  succeeding 
race  of  descendants  would  leave  the  sum  with  its 
interest  untouched,  and  the  place  of  its  sanctuary 
imviolated  ;  and,  that,  through  a  series  of  indefinite 
generations,  would  the  magnitude  ever  grow,  and 
the  lustre  ever  brighten,  of  that  household  god, 
which  he  had  erected  for  his  own  senseless  adora- 
tion, and  bequeathed  as  an  object  of  as  senseless 
adoration  to  his  family. 

We  have  the  authority  of  that  word  which  has 

18* 


510  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

been  pronounced  a  discerner  of  the  thoughts  and 
intents  of  the  heart,  that  it  cannot  have  two  masters, 
or  that  there  is  not  room  in  it  for  two  great  and  as- 
cendant affections.     The  engrossing  power  of  one 
such  affection  is  expressly  affirmed  of  the  love  for 
Mammon  or  the  love  for  money  thus  named  and 
characterised  as  an  idol.     Or,  in  other  words,  if 
the  love  of  money  be  in  the  heart,  the  love  of  God 
is  not  there.     If  a  man  be  trusting  in  uncertain  rich- 
es, he  is  not  trusting  in  the  living  God,  who  giveth 
us  all  things  richly  to  enjoy.     If  his  heart  be  set 
upon  covetousness,  it  is  set  upon  an  object  of  idol- 
atry.    The  true  divinity  is   moved  away  from  his 
place,  and,  worse  than  atheism,  which  would  only 
leave  it  empty,  has  the  love  of  wealth  raised  ano- 
ther divinity  upon  his  throne.     So  that  covetous- 
ness offers  a  more  daring  and  positive  aggression 
on  the  right  and  territory  of  the  godhead,  than  even 
infidelity.      The  latter  would    only  desolate  the 
sanctuary  of  heaven  ;  the  former  would  set  up  an 
abomination  in  the  midst  of  it.     It  not  only  strips 
God  of  love  and  of  confidence,  which  are  his  pre- 
rogatives, but  it  transfers  them  to  another.     And 
little  does  the  man  who  is  proud  in  honour,  but,  at 
the  same  time,  proud   and  peering  in   ambition — 
little  does  he  think,  that,  though  acquitted  in  the 
eye  of  all  his  fellows,  there  still  remains  an  atroci- 
ty of  a  deeper  character  than  even  that  of  atheism, 
with  which  he  is  chargeable.     Let  him  just  take  an 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  211 

account  of  his  mind,  amid  the  labours  of  his  mer- 
chandise, and  he  will  find  that  the  living  God  has 
no  ascendancy  there  ;  but  that  wealth  just  as  much 
as  if  personified  into  life,  and  agency,  and  power, 
wields  over  him  all  the  ascendancy  of  God.  Where 
his  treasure  is,  his  heart  is  also  ;  and,  linking,  as  he 
does  his  main  hope  with  its  increase,  and  his  main 
fear  with  its  fluctuations  and  its  failures,  he  has  as 
effectually  dethroned  the  Supreme  from  his  heart, 
and  deified  an  usurper  in  his  room,  as  if  fortune  had 
been  embodied  into  a  goddess,  and  he  were  in  the 
habit  of  repairing,  with  a  crowd  of  other  worship- 
pers, to  her  temple.  She,  in  fact,  is  the  dispenser 
of  that  which  he  chiefly  prizes  in  existence.  A 
smile  from  her  is  worth  all  the  promises  of  the  Eter- 
nal, and  her  threatening  frown  more  dreadful  to  the 
imagination  than  all  his  terrors. 

And  the  disease  is  as  near  to  universal  as  it  is  vir- 
tulent.  Wealth  is  the  goddess  whom  all  the  world 
worshippeth.  There  is  many  a  city  in  our  empire, 
of  which,  with  an  eye  of  apostolical  discernment,  it 
may  be  seen,  that  it  is  almost  wholly  given  over  to 
idolatry.  If  a  man  look  no  higher  than  to  his  mon- 
ey for  his  enjoyments,  then  money  is  his  god.  It  is 
the  god  of  his  dependence,  and  the  god  upon  whom 
his  heart  is  staid.  Or  if,  apart  from  other  enjoy- 
ments, it,  by  some  magical  power  of  its  own,  has 
gotten  the  ascendency,  then  still  it  is  followed  after 
as  the  supreme  good  5  and  there  is  an  actual  supplan- 


212  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

ting  of  the  living  God.  He  is  robbed  of  the  grati- 
tude that  we  owe  him  for  our  daily  sustenance  ;  for, 
instead  of  receiving  it  as  if  it  came  direct  out  of  his 
hand,  we  receive  it  as  if  it  came  from  tlie  hand  of  a 
secondary  agent,  to  whom  we  ascribe  all  the  stabili- 
ty and  independence  of  God.  This  wealth,  in  fact, 
obscures  to  us  the  character  of  God,  as  the  real 
though  unseen  Author  of  our  various  blessings  ;  and 
as  if  by  a  material  intervention,  dees  it  hide  from  the 
perception  of  nature,  the  hand  which  feeds,  and 
clothes,  and  maintains  us  in  life,  and  in  all  the  com- 
forts and  necessaries  of  life.  It  just  has  the  effect 
of  thickening  still  more  that  impalpable  veil  which 
lies  between  God  and  the  eye  of  the  senses.  We 
lose  all  discernment  of  him  as  the  giver  of  our  com- 
forts ;  and  coming,  as  they  appear  to  do,  from  that 
wealth  which  our  fancies  have  raised  into  a  living 
personification,  does  this  idol  stand  before  us,  not  as 
a  deputy  but  as  a  substitute  for  that  Being,  with 
whom  it  is  that  we  really  have  to  do.  All  this  goes 
both  to  widen  and  to  fortify  that  disruption  which 
has  taken  place  between  God  and  the  world.  It 
adds  the  power  of  one  great  master  idol  to  the  se- 
ducing influence  of  all  the  lesser  idolatries.  When 
the  liking  and  the  confidence  of  men  are  towards 
money,  there  is  no  direct  intercourse,  either  by  the 
one  or  the  other  of  these  affections  towards  God ; 
and,  in  proportion  as  he  sends  forth  his  desires,  and 
rests  his  security  on  the  former,  in  that  very  pro- 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  213 

portion  does   he  renounce  God  as   his  hope,   and 
God  as  his  dependance. 

And  to  advert,  for  one  moment,  to  the  misery  of 
this  affection,  as  well  as  to  its  sinfulness.  He,  over 
whom  it  reigns,  feels  a  worthlessness  in  his  present 
wealth,  after  it  is  gotten  ;  and  when  to  this  we  add 
the  restlessness  of  a  yet  unsated  appetite,  lording 
it  over  all  his  convictions,  and  panting  for  more  ; 
when,  to  the  dulness  of  his  actual  satisfaction  in  all 
the  riches  that  he  has,  we  add  his  still  unquenched, 
and,  indeed  unquenchable  desire  for  the  riches  that 
he  has  not ;  when  we  reflect  that  as,  in  the  pursuit 
of  wealth,  he  widens  the  circle  of  his  operation,  so 
he  lengthens  out  the  line  of  his  open  and  hazardous 
exposure,  and  multiplies,  along  the  extent  of  it,  those 
vulnerable  points  from  which  another  and  another 
dart  of  anxiety  may  enter  into  his  heart ;  when  he 
feels  himself  as  if  floating  on  an  ocean  of  contingen- 
cy, on  which,  perhaps,  he  is  only  borne  up  by  the 
breath  of  a  credit  that  is  fictitious,  and  which,  liable 
to  burst  every  moment,  may  leave  him  to  sink  un- 
der the  weight  of  his  overladen  speculation  ;  when, 
suspended  on  the  doubtful  result  of  his  bold  and  un- 
certain adventure,  he  dreads  the  tidings  of  disaster 
in  every  arrival,  and  lives  in  a  continual  agony  of 
feehng,  kept  up  by  the  crowd  and  turmoil  of  his 
manifold  distractions,  and  so  overspreading  the 
whole  compass  of  his  thoughts,  as  to  leave  not  one 
narrow  space  for  the  thought  of  eternity  : — will  any 


214  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

beholder  just  look  to  the  mind  of  this  unhappy  man, 
thus  tost  and  bewildered  and  thrown  into  a  general 
unceasing  frenzy,  made  out  of  many  fears  and  many . 
agitations,  and  not  say,  that  the  bird  of  the  air  which 
sends  forth  its  unreflecting  song,  and  lives  on  the 
fortuitous  bounty  of  Providence,  is  not  higher  in 
the  scale  of  enjoyment  than  he  ?  And  how  much 
more,  then,  the  quiet  Christian  beside  him,  who,  in 
possession  of  food  and  raiment  has  that  godliness 
with  contentment  which  is  great  gain — who  with 
the  peace  of  heaven  in  his  heart,  and  the  glories  of 
heaven  in  his  eye,  has  found  out  the  true  philosophy 
of  existence  ;  has  sought  a  portion  where  alone  a 
portion  can  be  found,  and,  in  bidding  away  from 
his  mind  the  love  of  money,  has  bidden  away  all  the 
cross  and  all  the  carefulness  along  with  it. 

Death  will  soon  break  up  every  swelling  enter- 
prise of  ambition,  and  put  upon  it  a  most  cruel  and 
degrading  mockery.  And  it  is,  indeed  an  affecting 
sight,  to  behold  the  workings  of  this  word's  infatua- 
tion among  so  many  of  our  fellow  mortals  nearing 
and  nearing  every  day  to  eternity,  and  yet,  instead 
of  taking  heed  to  that  which  is  before  them,  mistak- 
ing their  temporary  vehicle  for  their  abiding  home 
— and  spending  all  their  time  and  all  their  thought 
upon  its  accommodations.  It  is  all  the  doing  of  our 
great  adversary,  thus  to  invest  the  trifles  of  a  day 
in  such  characters  of  greatness  and  durability  ;  and 
it  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  formidable  of  his  wiles. 


CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES.  215 

And  whatever  maybe  the  instrument  of  reclaiming 
men  from  this  delusion,  it  certainly  is  not  any  argu- 
ment either  about  the  shortness  of  life,  or  the  cer- 
tainty and  awfulnessof  its  approaching  termination. 
On  this  point  man  is  capable  of  a  stout-hearted  re* 
sistance,  even  to  occular  demonstration  ;  nor  do  we 
know  a  more  striking  evidence  of  the  bereavement 
which  must  have  passed  upon  the  human  fac- 
ulties, than  to  see  how,  in  despite  of  arithmetic, — 
how,  in  despite  of  manifold  experience — how,  in 
despite  of  all  his  gathering  wrinkles,  and  all  his 
growing  infirmities — how,  in  despite  of  the  ever-les- 
sening distance  between  him  and  his  sepulchre,  and 
of  all  the  tokens  of  preparation  for  the  onset  of  the 
last  messenger,  with  which,  in  the  shape  of  weak- 
ness, and  breathlessness,  and  dimness  of  eyes,  he 
is  visited ;  will  the  feeble  and  asthmatic  man  still 
shake  his  silver  locks  in  all  the  glee  and  transport 
of  which  he  is  capable,  when  he  hears  of  his  gainful 
adventures,  and  his  new  accumulations.  Nor  can 
we  tell  how  near  he  must  get  to  his  grave,  or  how 
lar  on  he  must  advance  in  the  process  of  dying,  ere 
gain  cease  to  delight,  and  the  idol  of  wealth  cease 
to  be  dear  to  him.  But  when  we  see  that  the  topic 
is  trade  and  its  profits,  which  lights  up  his  faded  eye 
with  the  glow  of  its  chiefest  ecstacy,  we  are  as 
much  satisfied  that  he  leaves  the  world  with  all  his 
treasure  there,  and  all  the  desires  of  his  heart  there, 
Qfi  if  acting  what  is  told  of  the  miser's  death-bed,  ho 


216  CHALMERS'  DISCOURSES. 

made  his  bills  and  his  parchment's  of  security  the 
companions  of  his  bosom,  and  the  last  movements  of 
his  life  were  a  fearful,  tenacious,  determined  grasp, 
of  what  to  him  formed  the  all  for  which  life  was 
valuable. 


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